Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

a nurse and on special occasions as a
bearer of dispatches. A woman having
a peculiar or intuitive insight into dis-
ease and full of magnetic influence for
its relief, whose hand had many times
been outstretched to help the sick and
suffering, and who was the means of sav-
ing many a soldier's life and limb during
the war. And after the war she materi-
ally assisted in the upbuilding of the
Maine General Hospital at Portland,
Maine, and served on the Board of Visiting
Ladies to that institution for many
years. All of this experience conspired
to make her a real helpmate, and for
twenty years and more she worked hand
in hand with Dr. Russegue in his profes-
sion.
The prophesy of Dr. Russegue's col-
lege acquaintances and friends proved
true and he has met with remarkable suc-
cess in his profession and holds a high
place in the esteem of his contemporaries
in Hartford, where he has been honored
many times with responsibilities and
trusts. He has all his professional life
followed unswervingly the highest ideals
in his noble profession, and now is reap-
ing the rich fruition of a life spent in serv-
ice to his fellow-men.
Dr. Russegue is of French and English
ancestry, the names of his parents being
Alpheus Alonzo and Mary (Walker)
Russegue. both of whom were born in
the State of Vermont, but on marrying
removed to Massachusetts, settling in the
town of Franklin, where they lived for
nearly forty years. Dr. Russegue's father
became one of the most prominent busi-
ness men in that community, holding
many offices of trust and responsibility
in the affairs of the town, serving as town
clerk and town treasurer for over twenty
years, and he also was elected to repre-
sent the town in the House of Represen-
tatives of the Massachusetts State Legis-
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
L39
lature. And when he passed into the
great beyond, in his obituary, which was
written by the pastor of his church, he
was referred to as the good man for he
was a friend to the poor as well as to the
rich and a peacemaker having had, and
availed himself of, many opportunities for
manifesting that characteristic through
his being a justice of the peace and a
trial justice, thus influencing many to adjust
their differences without taking them
into Court. Four sons were born of this
wedlock, viz. : Francis Alonzo, Henry
Elmore, George Meeker and William
Alpheus, of whom Henry E. and George
M. are the only survivors.
Dr. Russegue's father was a descendant
of Alexander Resseguie, (the spelling of
the name Resseguie having been changed
by Dr. Russegue's father from the origi-
nal to the way he and his family spelled it
in his early business life with a view to
making the correct spelling of the name
more easily accomplished. But for the
most part the original way of spelling the
name has been retained by other descendants
of the settler in Norwalk, Con-
necticut, in 1709, and tradition has it that
he was the younger son of Alexander
Resseguie, a Huguenot refugee from
France. But as no complete genealogy
of the family is available to the writer,
he is unable to connect the American
family with its French progenitor.
Mclaughlin, Lewis,
Editor, Publisher.
Lewis McLaughlin, editor and owner
of "The Press," of Stafford Springs, Con-
necticut, and an esteemed resident of that
town, was born in Palmer, Massachusetts,
August 14, 1864, the son of James
and Ellen Josephine (Atwood) McLaughlin,
the former a journalist at that time
connected with "The Journal," of Palmer.