The Reverend Noadiah Russell (22 July 1659 – 3 December 1713) was a
Congregationalist minister, a founder and trustee of
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
, and one of the framers of the
Saybrook Platform.
Life
Russell was born in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...
, the son of William Russell, who emigrated from England in 1638, and his wife Sarah Davis. His father died in 1665. His will requested that his "son be devoted to God in the way of learning, being likely to prove a useful instrument in the good work of the ministry." Noadiah was graduated from
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher l ...
in 1681, and became a teacher.
[He taught at Ipswich; some sources state he was a tutor at Harvard, but Sibley found no records of him holding that office.] He was ordained at
Middletown on 24 October 1688.
Along with his cousin,
Samuel Russell, he was one of the ten founders of Yale in 1701 and a trustee of Yale College from 1701 to 1713.
Russell married Mary Hamlin, daughter of Captain Giles Hamlin and Hester Crow Hamlin, on 20 February 1689/90 at Middletown, Connecticut. They had nine children. Their eldest son Rev. William Russell, graduated from Yale in 1709, and his wife Mary Pierpont, daughter of another Yale founder, Rev.
James Pierpont, were parents of another Reverend Noadiah Russell.
Russell was pastor of the First Congregational Church in Middletown, Connecticut, for 25 years, until his death. He was succeeded as pastor by his son, William. Russell was buried in
Riverside Cemetery in Middletown.
Noadiah Russell was a progenitor of
William Huntington Russell,
Frank Henry Russell
Frank Henry Russell (July 17, 1878 – August 4, 1947) was an American aviation pioneer and the first General Manager of the Wright Brothers Company at Dayton, Ohio. He went on to co-found the Burgess Company and the Manufacturers Aircraft Ass ...
, and
Frank Ford Russell.
References
Yale University founders
1659 births
1713 deaths
Harvard University alumni
17th-century Congregationalist ministers
18th-century Congregationalist ministers
People of colonial Connecticut
American Congregationalist ministers
American people of English descent
Religious leaders from New Haven, Connecticut
Burials in Connecticut
18th-century American clergy
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