The Russell Trust Association is the business name for the New Haven, Connecticut based Skull and Bones society, incorporated in 1856.
The Russell Trust was incorporated by William Huntington Russell as its president, and Daniel Coit Gilman as its first treasurer. Gilman later went on to become president of the University of California at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University before leaving to become the first president of the Carnegie Foundation. Gilman also served as one of the first board members of the Russell Sage Foundation.
In 1943, by special act of the Connecticut state legislature, its trustees were granted an exemption from filing corporate reports with the Secretary of State, which is normally a requirement.
From 1978 onward, business of the Russell Trust Association was handled by its single trustee, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. partner John B. Madden. Madden started with Brown Brothers Harriman in 1946, under senior partner Prescott Bush.
The business and political network of the Skull and Bones was detailed by Hoover Institution scholar Antony C. Sutton in the exposé, America's Secret Establishment. Social organizations connected to the Russell Trust network include Deer Island Club, which also operates as a corporation.
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“A sufficiently great and generous trust could never be abused.”
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—French National Assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Man (drafted and discussed August 1789, published September 1791)