Russell, Willis & Rebecca Page (Sanborn)

Willis Russell 1814-1887 & Rebecca Page (Sanborn) 1813-1889

Willis Russell came originally from Vermont where he had been associated with his brothers in the paper, pulp, and lumber business. Willis married Rebecca Page (Sanborn) who descended from a long line of early New England colonists. Rebecca’s great grandfather, Lieutenant John Sanborn, was born in Norfolk, England in about 1620 and emigrated to the colonies in 1632 with the Rev. Stephen Bachiler party on the ship William and Frances, settling in Hampton, New Hampshire, the town having been founded by Rev. Bachiler. Many generations later, Rebecca Page Sanborn was born in 1813 in Sanbornton, NH to John Sanborn and Dorcas Nelson.
Not much is known about Rebecca herself other than she married Willis in Franklin, NH in 1835 and eight years later they relocated to Quebec City where she and Willis lived until 1887 when he died and she died a year later at age seventy-five. An interesting historical note: Rebecca was distantly related to Thomas Nelson Page, the US Ambassador to Italy during the First World War and a direct descendant of the Virginian, Thomas Nelson Jr., a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Willis and Rebecca had six children: Mary, William, Charles, Ellen, Arthur, and Agnes. Mary and William are the ones whose descendants have continued to come to Tadoussac.
After being sent by his family to Quebec to investigate business opportunities there, Willis remained a resident of Quebec City throughout the rest of his life and found himself in the hotel business, owning the St. Louis, the Albion, and the Russell House (now the Clarendon). The missal stand on the chapel altar on which the prayer book rests is made from an oak beam taken from the St. Louis Hotel when it was demolished to make room for the Chateau Frontenac.
When the doctor recommended sea air for Willis’s ailing daughter, his friend Colonel Rhodes of Quebec suggested they try Tadoussac. The two men bought lots beside each other in 1860 so they could continue the friendship of the two families. Rhodes built immediately and Russell the next year. His order to the builder was “build a house just like William Rhodes’s house.”
Subsequently, the Ste. Marguerite Salmon Club was founded in 1885 by Willis Russell and Robert Powel of Philadelphia and the three men could adjourn to the Marguerite River for salmon fishing. The Salmon Club leased all the rights on the Marguerite River along which they built six cottages. One of these, known as Bardsville, still stands.
A big promoter of Quebec tourism, Willis Russell wrote a book on the history of Quebec which can still be bought on Amazon (Quebec; as it was and as it is). Willis Russell was involved with the Tadoussac Hotel and Sea Bathing Company which opened the original hotel in 1864. He lived in Quebec City for forty-five uninterrupted years.
He is buried in Mt. Hermon Cemetery. Susie (Scott) Bruemmer, Willis and Rebecca’s great-great-granddaughter, now owns the property known as Spruce Cliff near the Tadoussac Tennis Club. The Dewarts, Reilleys, and O’Neills who all spend time in the summer in Tad in their own cottages are also direct descendants of Willis and Rebecca Russell.