This family connection enabled Russell easy access to area theaters watching plays, sometimes from backstage, without his parents' knowledge.

[1] At the age of thirteen, not long after the outbreak of the American Civil War, Russell ran away from home to serve in the Union Army as a drummer boy.

He fell ill while stationed at Paducah, Kentucky, and after being told that he was likely to die managed to return home to St. Louis, where his mother eventually nursed him back to health.

"Perhaps you'd like to have me tell you of my walk of thirty-six miles on a given occasion, with my wardrobe, tied up in a yellow handkerchief, under my arm," Mr. Russell remarked; "of my offering to give an entertainment, single-handed and alone, in a town,—one of the small towns of the region,—for which exhibition of my talents the boys of the place drove me into the river and pummeled me to their evident delight and satisfaction; of my subsisting for three days on one chicken ; of my arriving at the little town of Meredosia, Illinois, where there was no printing-office; of my taking one old handbill from my bundle, and, procuring a bell, going about the village and arousing the inhabitants, taking my bill from house to house, from store to store, and showing my program, and then, when evening came, exhibiting my abilities and talents to a house' whose receipts brought me, all told, exactly sixty-five cents!

Often I avoided hall hire, sang in the open air, and took up a collection; and on a certain occasion I added the sale of eye-water, at ten cents a bottle, to my entertainment without any noticeable increase of receipts."

Mr. Russell first came East with the Berger Family, and his impersonations of eccentric characters and imitations of John B. Grough attracted considerable attention.

During 1867 he was connected with the stock company of William E. Sinn's Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, of which James E. Murdock was the leading actor.

The stock company, which regularly played at the Olympic Theatre, was an unusually large one, and included a ballet corps and a numerous chorus.

He opened in Buffalo in "Edgewood Folks", a piece written for him by J. E. Brown, of Boston, especially to display his peculiar abilities as a character impersonator and entertainer, Mr. Russell's specialties being made a prominent feature.

Then on the retirement of William Warren in 1885 from the Boston Museum, Mr. Russell succeeded him as leading comedian, but in 1886 he resumed his starring tours, bringing out "Felix McKusick," by J. E. Brown.

My association with him, at a critical period in his stage career, resulted not only in material prosperity for both of us, but gave me for all time, cherished memories of a delightful comradeship which can never be forgotten."