Isaac Russell
Isaac Russell (April 1807 – September 25, 1844) was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement. He was one of the first missionaries to England and helped organize the Alston Church in 1837.
Born at Windy Haugh, near Alston in Cumberland, England, Russell was the youngest of thirteen children. His family moved to Upper Canada in 1817. He and his family were baptized into the Latter Day Saints on May 21, 1836, by Parley P. Pratt, along with the families of John Taylor and Joseph Fielding.
Russell joined the church’s main body in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1837. During the winter of 1838–39, as the saints fled Missouri, he claimed revelations that directed him to stay in Missouri and to lead the church into the Indian Territory, where he said the Three Nephites would join to convert the Lamanites. He also asserted that Joseph Smith had “fallen” and that Russell himself was the prophet. He wrote letters to those he had converted in England, secretly sharing his new beliefs and plans to recruit them.
His organization in England was called the Alston Church. However, apostle Willard Richards visited the Alston church members and convinced them to remain faithful to the main church. On April 26, 1839, Russell and most of his Missouri followers were excommunicated.
Afterward, the majority of his followers in Missouri left him and rejoined the main church in Nauvoo, Illinois, with one group leaving Far West, Missouri in May 1840. Russell stayed in Far West among anti‑Mormon mobs and never rejoined the Latter Day Saints. He died in 1844 on his farm near Richmond, Missouri, from swamp fever.
His widow, Mary Millican Walton Russell, and their children did not deny their faith in Joseph Smith and were not excommunicated. In 1861, after saving enough money, they moved to Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to join the Latter-day Saint community there.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 03:41 (CET).