Russell & Company
commercial
| Russell & Company link | |
|---|---|
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| Formation | 1824 |
| Founders | Samuel Russell, William Huntington Russell |
| Extinction | 1891 |
| Type | commercial |
Russell & Company was the largest American trading house of the mid-19th century in China. The firm specialised in trading tea, silk and opium and was eventually involved in the shipping trade.
Founder
Samuel Wadsworth Russell (August 25, 1789 – May 5, 1862) started as an orphaned apprentice to a maritime trade merchant, made his initial investment capital on trading commissions while working for other traders, and eventually founded Russell and Co., the most powerful American merchant house in China for most of the second half of the 19th Century. He landed in Canton in 1819 and quickly amassed a fortune in the opium trade. His mansion, now known as the Samuel Wadsworth Russell House, still stands in Middletown, Connecticut. Russell's cousin and fellow opium trader, William Huntington Russell, was a co-founder and funder of Yale University's Skull and Bones Society.[1][2]
Notable people of Russell & Company
- Warren Delano Jr., the grandfather of Franklin Roosevelt (32nd US President) served as the Chief of Operations of Russell and Company in Canton.
- Robert Bennet Forbes (1804–1889) was the head of Russell and Company.
- John Murray Forbes (1813-1898), brother of Robert Bennet Forbes and the great-granduncle of 2004 presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry.
- Abiel Abbot Low, founder of trading company A. A. Low & Brothers, served as a partner.
- William Henry Low, Abiel Abbot Low's uncle, senior partner of the firm.
- William Henry Low, Abiel Abbot Low's brother.
- Augustine Heard, who later founded Augustine Heard & Company, a large trading house in China.
- Russell Sturgis (1805-1887), who later became head of Baring Brothers in London.
- John Cleve Green (1800-1875), benefactor of Princeton University.
