Joseph Lytle Russell stated in his application for naturalization in 1848 that he had been in America for at least five years. It now appears that he had been in the Pittsburgh area since at least 1843. The Pittsburgh Daily Post for Monday, October 16, 1843 (repeated in the following two daily issues) listed those who needed to go the post office to collect mail.
James Russell, also with mail awaiting, was likely Joseph L's older brother.
3 comments:
Given the creative spelling current in N. Ireland and assuming that this was a letter from home, the newspaper may have reproduced it exactly as on the letter.
The creative spelling explains why this piece of evidence was not discovered until now and then only by accident. The indexes for newspapers and genealogy sites were all searched many times before but because of the spelling of "Joseph" this remained hidden. I was actually searching for James Russell and this popped up. A tribute to imagination and lateral thinking? More serendipity.
So the date for Joseph L Russell's arrival in the US gets pushed back further. Well done for finding this Jerome, even if by error. Much research advances by error and you still had to be looking in the right places to recognise the situation when it arose!
All good wishes,
Gary
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