Russell Abner Wood (March 25, 1880 – September 19, 1952) was an American politician who was a perennial candidate for statewide office in Massachusetts.

[1] Wood broke with his party in the 1911 United States Senate election in Massachusetts, voting for Harvard University president A. Lawrence Lowell over Republican incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge.

[5][6][7] In 1914, Governor David I. Walsh nominated Wood for a one-year term on the Commission on Economy and Efficiency.

After McCall left office, Wood took a job in the state tax division, which he would hold until he was sworn in as Auditor in 1939.

In 1924 he managed Merrill Griswold's unsuccessful campaign for the United States House of Representatives seat in Massachusetts's 8th congressional district.

[20] State fire inspector Ambrose W. Izelle disputed Wood’s assertion that the Willard School was unsafe.

Henry W. Holmes, dean of the Harvard School of Education, presented the signatures of 200 Cambridge residents who supported the headmaster.

[23] On June 7, 1937, Wood struck a fellow school committee member over the head with a large pad of paper and threw the contents of an ashtray and a pencil at him.

[27] He was defeated for reelection by Thomas J. Buckley, an auditor for the Rug-O-Vator Company and a former WPA bookkeeper who had never held public office before.

[28] In January 1941, Governor Leverett Saltonstall appointed Wood as chairman of the Fall River, Massachusetts, finance committee.

He won a 7 candidate primary to secure the Republican nomination, but lost to Democratic incumbent Edward J. Cronin 55% to 44%.

[36][37] On September 19, 1952, Wood collapsed and died of a heart attack while walking home from the grocery store.