Samuel R. Russell (1880-1943) was the senior dynamite technician for the DuPont Company from 1907 to 1943. He was born in Belfast, Ireland and came to America at an early age. He received a degree in civil engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1904, and in 1907 he began working for the Explosives Department of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company as a dynamite technician. During a long career with the DuPont Company, Russell became an expert on precision use of dynamite, supervising blasts in the United States, Canada, and South America, and developing new methods of blasting. Russell was called in as a consultant on a number of government and commercial projects, including the deepening of Honolulu Harbor. At the time of his death, Russell was senior dynamite technician for the DuPont Company, and his Wilmington obituary notes that he "shot more dynamite than any other man in the country."