Rensselaer Russell Nelson

HON. RENSSELAER R. NELSON, St. Paul. Membership #3217.

Judge of U. S. District Court. Born, Cooperstown, N. Y., May 12, 1826. Son of Hon. Samuel Nelson and Catharine Ann Russell; grandson of John Rogers Nelson and Jean Me Arthur; great-grandson of JOHN NELSON.

Also grandson of Hon. John Russell and Elizabeth Williams; great grandson of EBENEZER RUSSELL; great'grandson of Lieut. John Russell and Mary Barker;great:-grandson of Col. John Russell and Sarah Towbridge; great'-grandson of Rev. Samuel Russell (Harvard College, 1685,) and Abigail Whiting; great'-grandson of Rev. John Russell (Harvard College, 1645,) and Rebecca Newbury, his second wife; great6-grandson of John Russell, who was born in England, 1595; settled in Cambridge, Mass., 1635; an intimate friend of Colonial Governor Bellingham, of Massachusetts, and an executor of his will.

Also great-grandson of Rensselaer Williams and Katharine Van Langvelt (Longfield); great'-grandson of Richard Williams and Elizabeth Blood; great'-grandson of Edmund Blood and Jane, his wife; great'-grandson of Thomas Blood; great'-grandson of the famous Col. Thomas Blood (a friend of King Charles II. of England) and Miss Holdcraft, his wife; great'-grandson of Edmund Blood, who was a son of Edmund Blood, a member of the Irish Parliament from Enis Borough in 1613.

Also great'-grandson of Henry Van Langvelt (Longfield) and Anna Smith; great'-grandson of Cornelius Van Langvelt (Longfield) and Maria Greenlant; great'-grandson of Cornelius Van Langvelt, Sr., and Martha Jans, who came from Holland to New Amsterdam (New York) in 1647.

JOHN NELSON was born in Ballibay, Ireland, and died at Hebron, Washington county, N. Y. He came from Ireland in 1764, and settled at the headwaters of the Hudson in 1765. He was a soldier in the Revolution, serving as a Sergeant in Capt. Young's company in the Dorset Regiment, Charlotte county, N. Y.

Source: Year, Books 1889-1895 By Sons of the American Revolution. Minnesota Society, page 387-388.

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Hon. Rensselaer R. Nelson, for forty years and until recently the well-known and distinguished United States district judge for the District of Minnesota, was born at Cooperstown, N. Y., May 12, 1826. He comes of an old, honorable, and historic American ancestry. His father, Samuel Nelson, was long one of the judges of the New York supreme court and afterward an eminent and distinguished associate justice of the supreme court of the United States. His remote ancestors were Irish, Scotch, English, and Dutch, and in part his genealogy is as follows: On the paternal side he is a son of Samuel Nelson and Catherine Russell; grandson of John Rogers Nelson and Jean McAithur, great-grandson of John Nelson, who was born in Ballybay, Ireland, emigrated to America in 1764, settled on the headwaters of the Hudson river in 1765, and served as a sergeant of Captain Y'oung's company, in the Dorset regiment, of Charlotte county. New York, in the War of the Revolution.

On the maternal side he is a grandson of John Russell and Elizabeth Williams; great-grandson of Ebenezer Russell, who was a Revolutionary soldier in the same regiment with John Nelson. On the same side he is descended from John Russell, who was born in England in 1595, settled at Cambridge, Mass., in 1635, and was an intimate friend of Governor Bellingham and executor of his will. On the same side he is a great-grandson of Rensselaer Williams and Katharine Van Langvelt (Anglice, Longfleld), and in the sixth generation descended from Edmund Blood, a member of the Irish parliament from Ennisborough in 1613, and whose son, Thomas Blood, was an intimate friend and associate of Charles II. His remote Dutch ancestors, Cornelius Van Langvelt and Martha Jans, came from Holland to New York—then New Amsterdam in 1647.

Judge Nelson's early life was spent in his native town, founded by the father of the great American novelist, J. Fenimore Cooper, who died there in 1851,and he was mainly prepared for college in its military school and at Haitwick Seminary. He entered Yale College in 1842 and was graduated therefrom in 1846. In the same class were Governor Harrison and ex-Congressman Kellogg of Connecticut and Hon. John B. Brisbin of St. Paul. Another college mate was "Dick" Taylor, a son of President Taylor, and who became a distinguished Confederate.

Source: THE CITY OF SAINT PAUL, page 161. http://memory.loc.gov/service/gc/mtfgc/2135/1630161.txt