Osborne Russell was born 19 June 1814, in the village of
Bowdoinham, Maine. He was one of nine children in the farming family of George G. and Eleanor (Power) Russell. At age 16, Russell ran away for a life at sea, but quickly gave up that career by deserting his ship at New York. Afterwards he spent three years in the employ of the Northwest Fur Trapping and Trading Company, which operated in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Russell first came to the
Oregon Country in 1834 as a member of
Nathaniel J. Wyeth's second expedition where Russell joined Nathaniel Wyeth's Columbia River Fishing and Trading Company expedition to the Rocky Mountains. The company was contracted to deliver $3,000 worth of supplies and trade goods to
Milton Sublette and
Thomas Fitzpatrick of the
Rocky Mountain Fur Company for the
1834 Rendezvous. Men for this venture were recruited on the frontier at
St Louis and
Independence, Missouri. It was in Independence that Osborne Russell joined the company. The term of service was for eighteen months at a wage of $250. In spite of his previous experience with the Northwest Fur Trapping and Trading Company, Russell was still inexperienced in the ways of the wilderness when he joined Wyeth's company. Through his journal we see Russell develop into a seasoned veteran of the mountains and a Free Trapper. When Wyeth's party arrived at the Rendezvous at Ham's Fork of
Green River, he found that the Rocky Mountain Fur Company had been dissolved and a new company formed. The new company defaulted on its contract with Wyeth, who was then left with a surplus of goods and supplies that he had transported to the mountains. By necessity, Wyeth had to alter his own plans to salvage his company from financial ruin. He and his party pushed on to the
Snake River plain, (near what would become
Pocatello, Idaho) where he established
Fort Hall, named after one of the partners in the company, Henry Hall. Here Wyeth would trade his remaining goods with the local Indians. The fort was quickly completed, and trade with the Indians was started by the autumn of 1834. It was not until the spring of 1835 that Wyeth fielded trapping parties operating out of the fort. These trapping parties were poorly managed, and unlike many others, Russell did not desert. In 1844, he was elected to the second
Executive Committee of the Provisional Government of Oregon. He was unsuccessful in his run for governor of the Provisional Government in 1845, giving his support to
George Abernethy. Russell eventually went to California in 1848, after the discovery of gold there. ==Works==