The night before Christmas, 1879, witnessed the death of one of the
brightest young humorists the United States has ever called her own.
Of bright intellect and finished education, Irwin Russell was rapidly
winning a name in American literature, when taken ill, as the result of
overwork; he lingered a few days, and died Christmas Eve.
Little is known of the early days of Irwin Russell. He was born in Fort
Gibson, and at an early age was left an orphan, relying on his own
exertions for a livelihood. He studied law and began the practice of it
in his native city, but, becoming enamored with the life of a Bohemian,
he started for New Orleans in search of fame and fortune. He obtained
employment at local writing in various newspaper offices, and finally
found regular employment in the editorial rooms of the New Orleans
Times. Then he left the South and turned up in New York city, where
he struggled with fate for a time. His existence was a battle with
necessity from the first. It seemed that he was born unlucky. Although
his prospects were always fine, he never lived to establish himself
permanently anywhere. Few men ever received so many buffets from the
hand of fate.
Alone and friendless in New York, young and ambitious, yet weak and
moneyless, success and he were strangers. The health of the poor boy
failed him, and he would have died had he remained in New York. He
shipped on board of a steamer bound for the gulf, and worked his way
home--not home, for he had none, but to New Orleans, where he had, at
least, a few friends among the journalists of that city. He returned
to work upon the Times, and published some of the daintiest bits of
dialect humor ever given to the public.
By a strange coincidence his last published lines were written upon
the subject of his own grave. They appeared in the New Orleans Times,
December 14th, just ten days before the author gave up the struggle
with fate and died.