2. WILLIAM HANNAFORD RANDALL, born May 8, 1806 in Roxbury, Massachusetts; died July 30, 1861 in St. Paul, Minn.; buried 1861 in Oakland Cemetery, St. Paul, Minn. Block 8, Lot 51. He was the son of 1. Jonas Randall and Mary Knower. He married Elizabeth Colburn October 19, 1828 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Colburn, born October 5, 1806 in Massachusetts; died March 6, 1877 in New York, N.Y.; buried March 9, 1877 in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Lot 17297, Section 181.
William Hannaford Randall seems to have been named after his mother’s brother-in-law, William Hannaford, the husband of Elizabeth Knower Hannaford. He was born on May 8, 1806 in Roxbury, Mass., and he married Elizabeth Colburn October 19, 1828 in the same town. Elizabeth “had been brot up in Dedham by ‘Grandpa & Grandma Giles’ …. she was such a lady “to the manor born” -- Her own parents died when she & her brother-who was killed in the Mexican war were very little.”
According to family lore, “in the later 1820s, the Baptist Church of Roxbury was organized in his [William’s] farm kitchen,” but this may be a somewhat altered memory of the following incident: “Near the close of the year 1817, Mr. Beza Tucker of Roxbury, a member of the Old South Society in Boston, but not a professor of religion, opened his house on Sabbath evenings for preaching. The first sermon was delivered by Rev. Daniel Sharp. These meetings were continued in the same place until the following spring.” At any rate, William was baptized at the Dudley Street Baptist Church in July 1827; he was dismissed in March 1833, which probably indicates when he made the final move to New York City. Family tradition states that “about 1830 he [William] moved to New York City and went into the wholesale grocery business.” William H. Randall first appears as a merchant in the 1832/33 New York directory; he has this occupation listed through 1835/36, the last three years at the address 5 William Street. Emily Randall writes that she has in her possession “a handwritten lease from John Turner to John Randall, witnessed by William H. Randall and dated January 15, 1833, of store premises at 5 William Street, New York.” In a deposition on October 02, 1835, at the City of New York, in a legal matter involving the schooner Black Hawk and its swindling captain, Francis Holden, William H. Randall deposed “that during the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty four he was clerk to his brother John Randall.” His “store was burned in an awful fire that swept the City, in the early 30s, I think & he failed completely in the panic of 1837.” This refers to the Great Fire of December 16, 1835, which “swept away six hundred and seventy-four buildings, covering seventeen blocks, and fifty acres of ground, in the very heart of the city. It destroyed the section which contained the banks, the Stock Exchange, the Post Office, two churches, the dry goods warehouses, and some of the finest buildings in the city.” Family tradition has it that “President Andrew Jackson, near the end of his second term, appointed Randall as Customs Officer for the Port of New York - presumably at the instance of the Democratic boss of New York, soon to be president, Martin Van Buren, with whom he was associated, though I’ve never heard how that happened.” This is confirmed by the 1836/37 New York directory, where William is listed as a U.S. Inspector. He probably owed the appointment to the fact that his first cousin (the daughter of his mother Mary Knower Randall’s brother Benjamin Knower, Jr.) was Cornelia Knower, the wife of William Learned Marcy, the governor of New York (1833-39), and part of the Van Buren machine. Gov. Marcy most likely arranged to have his wife’s cousin installed in the New York Customs House.
It is unclear what William was doing during the late 1830s. While one family account has him at the Customs House through 1841, when the Democrats lost the presidency, and therefore the patronage of the New York Customs House, his name disappears from the New York directories in 1837-39. He may have had financial difficulties: On July 16, 1835 (before the Great Fire) William borrowed $107.57 from his brother John Randall; on November 21, 1836 he borrowed another $228.74; on August 19, 1837 William he borrowed $64.30, promising to repay it in six months. The 1836 and 1837 IOUs say that he resided at 167 Rivington St. Two marginalia on the 1837 IOU indicate that the money was still unpaid on January 1, 1840 and November 1, 1840. He was probably still in New York: On May 21, 1837 Sarah Ann Limberger Randall wrote in a letter to her husband John Randall that "mother has gone over to William's to dine." Between 1839/40 and 1843/44, the New York directories list one William Randall working as a tailor; this could well have been William Hannaford, in reduced circumstances. Family tradition states that William “was not in the fur business until in the ‘40s. ‘Uncle John’ was, & after Grandfather’s financial crash, & his party went out of power, he joined his brother & came west in ’46 to look after the buying & shipping of the skins” in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1844/45 William H. Randall definitely reappears in the New York directories, working in the fur business, with his brother John Randall (probably as a junior associate of John) at 176 Water Street. Although William was in St. Paul from 1846 on, his name remains in the New York directories, working in furs, at 176 or 178 Water Street, through 1852/53; from 1845/46 to 1853/54 his home address is 171 Rivington St. He may have shuttled back and forth between New York and St. Paul for a while; the fact that William appears in the 1850 Census in both New York and St. Paul indicates that he did not entirely settle down in St. Paul until some time in the 1850s. (That John spent some time in St. Paul before ultimately deciding to return to New York indicates that this option was open to William as well.) The New York Herald’s obituary of William H. Randall, Jr., November 8, 1851, lists him as the son of Wm. H. Randall “of this city”; this indicates that his main residence was then still New York City. Elizabeth may not have left New York at all until the late 1850s; she is listed in the New York directories as living at 141 E. 19 St., right next door to John Randall, in 1854/55 and 1855/56. However, she was in St. Paul in 1860. Her grand-daughter believed that she lived in St. Paul “for several years before Grandpa died [in 1861].” J. Fletcher Williams sketches William’s career in St. Paul: “He was in business in New York, in 1845, with his brother John, when Wm. Hartshorn went there to purchase goods. Mr. Randall seemed to feel a great interest in St. Paul, made many inquiries regarding it, and, the following year, accompanied Mr. Hartshorn out, and resolved to settle here. He seemed to have, from the first, a firm faith in the future greatness and prosperity of the place. He soon after, with his brother, and, perhaps, the Freemans and A. L. Larpenteur, succeeded to Mr. Hartshorn's business, and became owner of a large amount of valuable property, in the heart of the city. He was one of the proprietors of the Town of Saint Paul when it was laid out in 1847. This property became immensely valuable, and, just prior to the crash of 1857, "Father Randall," as he was called, was considered a millionaire …. The panic of 1857 wrecked him, as it did every heavy owner of real estate, and his once ample fortune slipped away …. On July 30, 1861, he died of heart disease, aged 55 years, and was buried by the Masonic Fraternity and the Old Settlers of Saint Paul.” To this summary may be added some details. In the rivalry among the real estate speculators in early St. Paul, William and John Randall stood with the lower town forces against the upper town forces, with some success. He was listed as merchant owning $5000 of real estate in the 1850 Census of Ramsey County; in the 1860 Census he listed himself as a real-estate dealer and still claimed the value of his real estate as $1,500,000 and the value of his personal estate as $200,000. His “warehouses were on the south-side of Third St.,” and he and Elizabeth “lived in a house on the south-west corner of 4th & Jackson, where they had a large yard.” The Ramsey County Deed Index lists a great number of deeds in the 1840s-1860s involving the names John Randall, William H. Randall, John H. Randall, William H. Randall, Jr., etc.; the quantity of deeds confirms considerable commercial activity by the Randalls. Up through 1856 John Randall’s name occurs more frequently than William H. Randall’s; in 1856 about a dozen deeds are transferred at once from John to William. One may speculate that up until then William may have been acting in good part as John’s agent, and that in 1856 he bought out his brother’s interests in St. Paul. If so, this was spectacularly bad timing, since the real estate market crashed in 1857. William’s St. Paul Weekly Press obituary stated that he was “Generous to a fault, and singularly indiscriminate in his friendships, he made loans and endorsements to others, that completely wrecked his princely fortune. He was public spirited and enterprising. In the early days of St. Paul he used to grade streets and improve the levee at his own private expense. In 1848 he built the warehouse at the corner of the levee and Jackson street, now occupied by Wm. Constans. It was a great building then. He was one of the projectors of the Bridge, that spans the Mississippi, and paid liberally toward its construction. He also aided in the inception of a railroad enterprise. While he had property and credit it was freely used, entitling him to the appellation of a public benefactor.” His St. Paul Pioneer & Democrat obituary added that William “has been one of the marked characters of St. Paul, from the first. Possessed of large landed interests here and throughout the State. he took a pleasure in the development of the city and country beyond that afforded by his selfish interests. When Mr. RANDALL came to the West he was at the age when most men retire from active business; but it was a marked trait with him that he was always the youngest, sprightliest member of any company in which he might be placed. The generous nature, and genial humor, which thus environed his presence with the atmosphere of youth, hardly forsook him even through the pains of his last illness; and following the crisis of ’57, which seriously damaged his fortune, he carried as jovial a face as if the per centages were flowing into his pockets by the tens of thousands, instead of flowing out by the twenties. We have never known a more kindly-hearted man. There are many who owe their start and success in life to his generosity; very many others, strangers, stricken by sickness in a strange land, who owe life itself to his nursing; and in our cemeteries scores of mounds mark the graves of those who, having no relatives to minister to them, in their fatal illness, were soothed and comforted by the tender hand, and open purse, and sympathizing voice, of the kind old man with whom suffering was always a bond of friendship. And so it was that all the community called him “Father RANDALL” -- testifying in this half-conscious, familiar way to the generous impulses of his nature.” Newson describes William as “a fine, gentlemanly, courteous citizen, a hail fellow well met, genial and generous. At the time I first saw him, in 1853, he was the "biggest man in town." He had various vehicles and drivers, any number of horses, dealt largely in real estate, and his note was good almost anywhere for almost any amount …. In personal appearance Mr. Randall was of medium size, with a florid complexion, and always finely dressed. He invariably carried a gold-headed cane and his movements on the street were of an energetic character. He had a soft, pleasant voice, and winning ways, and was always polite. He was social among his friends, generous to their wants, and yet wide-awake for business. We might say, he was the advance courier of gentlemanly culture and true civilization.”
Elizabeth appears to have returned to New York City after William died, to live with the family of her daughter, Mary Randall Bergmann. According to her granddaughter, she played a crucial role in securing her son John’s second marriage to Sarah Oakes: “Grandma Oakes made such a “tune” because Papa was “a divorced man”, that there pretty nearly was no wedding, but Papa went east & got his mother & on the way west stopped at St Clair [Michigan] & between them they won Grandma Oakes over completely, so that ever after “Johnny” was absolutely all right in Grandma Oakes eyes, but Mama always said it was Grandma R[andall]’s tact & diplomacy that accomplished it, but Grandma R[andall]. was & always will be to me the perfect great lady, & I use each word advisedly.” She was residing with her daughter in New York in 1870, and Frank E. Randall, writing in 1896 with uncertain authority, stated that in 1875 William H. Randall’s widow, Elizabeth C. Randall, “was living with her widowed daughter (Mary) at 233 E. 19th St., N.Y. City.” She died at 233 E. 19 St., and is buried with her daughter’s family (the Bergmanns) in Greenwood Cemetery. Of William and Elizabeth’s children, William Jr. came out to St. Paul in 1846 with his father and died in 1851; John and Elisha came out to St. Paul in the 1850s, and stayed; Mary remained in New York and married Hermann Bergmann; and Ann died in infancy. Also see the article: “William H. Randall,” Ramsey County History 5, 1 (Spring 1968), pp. 16-17.