Sarah Amanda Sanders Russell

Sarah Amanda Sanders Russell (August 31, 1844 – March 18, 1913) was an American political hostess, temperance activist, and farmer. She served as the First Lady of North Carolina from 1897 to 1901 and was the first Republican First Lady to live in the North Carolina Executive Mansion. She and her husband supported emancipation of enslaved people and rights for African-Americans, which made them unpopular in the Democrat-majority state. She was a supporter of the temperance movement and women's suffrage, and was a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. After her husband retired from politics, they lived at Belleville, their plantation in Brunswick County. At Belleville, Russell grew rice and pine, for turpentine, and operated a dairy.

Early life Russell was born Sarah Amanda Sanders in Onslow County, North Carolina on August 31, 1844, to Colonel Isaac Newton Sanders and Caroline Burns Sanders. Her father, who opposed Southern secession and the American Civil War, refused to fight for the Confederate States Army and the Union Army. Her mother died when she was young, and she spent most of her youth wearing black mourning dress. They had no children. The couple moved to Wilmington, where her husband was elected as a judge of the North Carolina Superior Court. They lived in Washington, D.C. while her husband served as a member of the United States Congress, and then settled at Belleville, their plantation in Brunswick County. At Belleville, Russell grew rice and pine, for producing turpentine. Russell purchased a cow to provide milk for her ailing niece, who lived with them, and later expanded the operation into a working dairy at Belleville.

She died of cancer on March 18, 1913.