[2] John Russell was born near Derry, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1830.
[1] In 1850, he moved to Kentucky to serve as a bookkeeper for the Amanda Furnace in Greenup County for $400 a year.
Upon the 1855 death of the senior partner, Archibald Paull of Wheeling, he bought an eighth interest in the Belle Fonta Furnace and formed a partnership with its owners, Thomas and Hugh Means.
As president of the Means and Russell Iron Company,[1] he purchased the land of the former Amanda Furnace and, in 1869, platted out a new city named "Riverview" along the expected route of a new Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad spur between Huntington, West Virginia, and Cincinnati, Ohio.
[2] He subsequently served as president of the Catlettsburg National Bank, the Means & Russell Iron Co. in Russell, the St. Clair Coke Works (in Fayette County, West Virginia), and the Norton Iron Works in Ashland.