Russell Has an Arsenal Story Hiding Behind the Hills

Russell sounds quiet now, but a lot is packed into the old story. Russell Attwater bought land here in 1798, then came in 1805 with two other families to spend that first winter. From there the place grew around mills, farms, stores, cheese factories, logging, and the hard work of making a North Country town hold together.

Then comes the surprise: the War of 1812 brought an arsenal to Russell. It was a massive three-story stone building with room for artillery, small arms, and ammunition. At Russell Memorial Hall/Museum, the Old Arsenal still has a place in local memory, including a picture of the 30-by-50-foot building. That is a strong image for a town many people might otherwise read as only rural.

The other details keep getting better. Russell had talc, iron, pyrite, spruce gum shipped as far as Australia and Canada, dairy and logging work, and George Bartholomew, a watch-and-clock-shop inventor connected to a 1900 horseless carriage.

Put together, Russell is not one story. It is a pile of local chapters: frontier winter, arsenal, mills, minerals, gum, farms, logging, museum cases, and one tinkerer building a car before the road map expected it.