George Bryant Russell, son of Rev. S. R. and N. A. Russell, was born in Cherokee County, Alabama, May 11, 1846.

He grew to manhood on his father's farm; graduated from the Gaylesville High School, and entered Cumberland University second time in 1874. He married Miss Sarah Hampton, of Georgia, in 1873. To them were born three sons: Samuel Hampton, died at one year of age; John Floyd, living at Itta Benna, Miss., and James Gordon, living in Los Angeles, Cal.

After leaving Cumberland University, he established the Collegiate Institute of Cross Plains, Ala. (now Piedmont), and served six terms, twelve years, as Superintendent of Education of Calhoun County, Alabama, and in 1889 took charge of Attalla College, in Attalla, Ala. He was ordained to the ministry in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1873; established the church in Piedmont, Ala.; served for periods varying from a few months to twelve years in churches at Piedmont, Gaylesville, Five Mile, Attalla, Shady Grove, Fort Payne, Lebanon, and others in Alabama; West Point, Miss., Knoxville, Tenn., Fort Worth, Ferris, Lisbon, Wills Point, Pilot Point, Hughes Springs, Dangerfield, Weatherford, in Texas. He was State Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League of Alabama for two years, and spent two years in the same work in Texas; spent one year in Texas in the prison reform work; spent two years in establishing the Cumberland Presbyterian Orphans Home, which resulted in the Bowling Green, (Ky.) Home; was Deputy Grand Master for the Ancient Order of United Workmen for the State of Wisconsin, in 1889. He served one year as missionary for the Cumberland Church to the Pacific Coast, and is now a Temperance Evangelist. He has been a member of many of the General Assemblies since entering the ministry and served a great number of times as Moderator of Presbyteries and Synods in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and California. He has held numerous protracted meetings and received vast numbers into the church. He received the Degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1895. He is now president of the Mississippi State Society of Los Angeles, and honorary president of the Alabama State Society in the same city. He is a Royal Arch Mason.

His first wife died in 1900. In 1906 he was married to Miss Sallie Sheehy, of Mississippi.

In 1906, when the division came in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, he was the only preacher left in his presbytery; but we are glad to add, at that, the biggest part of the presbytery remained Cumberland Presbyterian.

[Source: Our Senior Soldiers: The Biographies and Autobiographies of Eighty Cumberland Presbyterian Preachers. Compiled by The Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Publication. Nashville, Tenn.: Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1915, pages 257-259]

[Source: Minutes of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1924, page 252]