William Hepburn Russell

Russell was born in Burlington, Vermont, on January 31, 1812. In the early 1820s, he moved as a child with his family to western Missouri. In 1826, at the age of 16 and with little formal education, he began work at the Ely & Curtis general store in Liberty, Missouri. Two years later, in 1830, he began working for the mercantile firm of James Aull and Samuel Ringo, where he learned the wholesale business.

In 1837 at the age of 25, Russell left the Aull and Ringo firm to strike out on his own. He helped to organize the Lexington First Addition Company in 1840 with his future partner, William B. Waddell. In 1844, using borrowed money, Russell and James H. Bullard created the partnership of Bullard & Russell to open a general store. This partnership soon welcomed an additional partner in E.C. McCarty and expanded to shipping goods to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He then went on to become a partner in the established firm of Waddell, Ramsey & Co. While some of these early business ventures ended in failure, by 1848, Russell was successful enough to build a 20-room mansion in Lexington, Missouri.

In 1850, in partnership with James Brown, and John S. Jones, Russell entered the military freighting business. This partnership dissolved soon after the death of Brown in 1850. In 1852, he re-partnered with William B. Waddell to form a mercantile firm; by 1854 they were freighting military supplies to Santa Fe.

In 1835 he married Harriet Elliot Warder, whose social standing helped his.