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Note: Biography & Genealogy Master Index (BGMI) Viewing records 1-1 of 1 Matches
938596
Randall, Ferris Seaman 1909-
A Biographical Directory of Librarians in the United States and Canada. Fifth edition. Edited by Lee Ash. Chicago: American Library Association, 1970. (BiDrLUS 70)
Who's Who in Library Service. A biographical directory of professional librarians in the United States and Canada. Fourth edition. Edited by Lee Ash. Hamden, CT: Shoe String Press, 1966. (WhoLibS 66)
Who's Who in the Midwest. 14th edition, 1974-1975. Wilmette, IL: Marquis Who's Who, 1974. (WhoMW 74)
According to Corydon Randall, was living in a nursing home in Maryland, March 2001.
Name Birth Death Last Residence Last Benefit SSN Issued
FERRIS S RANDALL 25 May 1909 07 Oct 2001 (V) 62692 (Waverly, Morgan, IL) (none specified) 065-09-4726 New York
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Continued from the notes for Mort's wife, Jane Whitehead
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I have seen his back one great blister. He had a queer team of horses. One was a little pony and the other a large horse. He had a great carriage heavy enough for four horses, but he would hitch this ill-mated team to it, pile all the youngsters in, and your grandmother and then he would pick out all the break-neck roads he could find and come home saying it was the ride of his life. He was a great lover of baseball, but could never catch a ball, nor could he even hit one. And should he by accident hit one, it would use him up to run the bases and the game was called. Well, you had a nice grandfather.
Now I am going to tell you what I have seen in the many trips I have had. My first trip [1891?] was to New York with [your] Cousin [Mort's son] Will when he went to Paris to study the violin. He stayed in New York a week before he sailed and went out to Roslyn and Philadelphia. Well the time came for him to sail. I bid him good-bye and then got behind a door and cried for one hour. The next day I went to Washington for the first time. Then came home and put in three dull years without Cousin Will.
Ellis Island records show Will and sister May returning from Europe aboard the Holland - America liner Spaarndam, sailing from Rotterdam and Boulogne, arriving in New York, 23 April 1894. This might have been the trip mentioned here, but it is odd that May is not mentioned; it is known she also studied violin in Paris. She married one Frederic L. Abel in 1895.
The next trip, Kate and I went to the Columbian Fair in Chicago [1893]. It was wonderful. The ships of Columbus interested me and the Viking boat, an open boat and how she crossed the ocean is a wonder. The buildings were beautiful and so large. The main building covered thirty acres of land and all the others on such a gigantic scale and so beautiful. My next trip was with Kate. We went to Montreal in a boat. What a beautiful trip this was down the Detroit River, then into Lake Erie, then down the Welland Canal with its twenty-six locks then into Lake Ontario and down the grand St. Lawrence, Thousand Islands and through several locks. Montreal is a grand and a very solidly built city. It lies on the St. Lawrence River and has a background of Mt. Royal, which is said to be an extinct volcano. It is very high. Kate and I went to the top and the city below looked very small. This city is the head of ocean navigation. Kate and I went through on ocean steamer, the first she had ever been on. Coming back instead of going down that great mountain, we had to go up over it through the locks. In some parts of the canal, the locks are very close and the passengers would walk. We were going along and happened to look way up and there was a great boat almost in the clouds. After a while we were up there and that boat was down where we were. Is it not funny that boats can be carried over a "mountain?" When we got in Lake Erie, our boat stopped at many Canadian towns.
My next trip was with Will to Philadelphia and how I loved going through the old State Building containing all our country's history. The old bell that rang out the news that independence had been proclaimed. There were the old chairs around the big round table. The old inkstand and the pen that the Declaration of Independence was signed with. The great banqueting room where the first wounded soldiers of the Revolution were brought to and all the other rooms that were so full of history and the original Declaration of Independence is there. We bid good-bye to Philadelphia and went to Buffalo and took a trolley for a dock on Lake Ontario where we boarded a boat for Quebec. Again I had the beautiful ride through the Welland canal and down the St. Lawrence River. Will was delighted with both canal and river. I wonder if you know how a boat goes over a mountain by water. We'll say we are going up. The lock has two immense gates at each
end of the lock. The upper gates are shut and the lower ones open. Our boat sails in and we are about twelve feet lower than the water above us. The back gates are closed and the front ones opened. Then the water rushes in. Let in by opening little gates in the bottom one and the boat begins to rise and keeps [rising] until the lock is full and we are on a level to sail to the next lock. I got a little mixed [up]. I meant to say that the little gates are opened that are in the bottom of the gates and they let the water in until the lock is full, then the gates are opened and our boat sails out to the next lock. The St. Lawrence has several very swift rapids, our boat going down and all. The government has made canals so that boats need not go down the rapids unless they want to. Will was so delighted with the Thousand Islands and when we came to the last rapids, the Lachina, our hair stood up, for the water is as the water at Niagara Falls. You cannot imagine a more hazardous undertaking than to go into that whirlpool. Our boat ran at the rate of fifty miles an hour and great rocks everywhere. With four men at the wheel and four below with a great rudder sweep. It would look as if we were heading for a great rock, when all hands would turn the wheel only to head for another great rock, and if we should strike one it could be good-bye John for nothing could save us. You will never hear of my going down those rapids again, no sir. We are now in Montreal and Will and I go ashore as the boat is to spend the day. We take a good walk around the city and up on Mt. Royal from which we got a great view of the city and the great river and also the Ottawa River which flows into the St. Lawrence. The St. Lawrence water is clear as crystal and the Ottawa muddy. The two waters never mix and in mid-stream one side is clear water and the other side muddy. Montreal is a very interesting city and built mostly of white stone.
We are now off for Quebec. The sail down the river was very delightful with the great ribbon farms on one side and the clusters little white houses, for all the farmers built their houses close together, I suppose in an early day for protection and also company. Every house had a wind mill and once in a while we would see great wind mills that ground their grain. Everything was white washed. We sailed under a great bridge that was to span the river but shortly after it fell and killed a great many men. We are coming into Quebec. The first we see is a great mountain. Our boat lands and we go ashore. The old part of the city is made up of very small houses mostly of stone and the streets vein narrow and no sidewalks. While we were there they were tearing down the great wall that surrounded the old city. The new part of the city was modern in every respect. On the top of this great hill or rather mountain was the fort and back of the fort was the Plains of Abraham where a great battle [1759] between the French and English was fought and we saw the mount where eighteen hundred soldiers were buried. An immense hotel stands on this hill and an inclined elevator carries the people from the street below. This is a great old city and Will said much like some of the cities of the old world. We had not long to stay as our old boat was getting uneasy so that we got on board. Then soon we start for home and the trip was as delightful as going down. We made a short stop at Montreal and we passed many ocean ships on our way. It is so interesting always to go through locks and up pretty swift rapids. Well, we kept on going until we brought up to the dock that we started from a week before.
And after thanking the Captain and all the hands, we bid good-bye to Lake Ontario and boarded a street car for Buffalo and got there in time to take the boat for Detroit. This is a trip that I hope some day all of you will take.
I think the next trip that Cousin Will and I took was to the Buffalo Fair [1 May - 2 November 1901] known as the "Pan American." This was a beautiful fair, not so large as the one at Chicago but more beautiful. All the buildings were so artistic and painted in such glorious colors and such water effects with electric lights. In fact the marvel of electricity is beyond me. We were in the church just a few days before Pres. McKinley was shot [6 September 1901].
I think our next move was a trip to Philadelphia and from there to a little place down in the Lehigh Valley [Pennsylvania] called "Mauch Chunk" [in 1954, the town was renamed Jim Thorpe] a wonderful coal field. Here we stayed for a few days and saw some of great coal mines. This little city is in a valley high mountains on each side, and do not think more than half a mile wide. The Lehigh River runs through the center and the buildings are dug into the sides of mountains. A canal ran along side of the river and a railroad on each side and street cars as well. Nothing but coal everywhere. The old restaurant keeper showed us his storeroom. It was cut out of solid coal. You may have heard of the "Switch Back [Gravity] Railroad."
The second railroad in the United States and the first in Pennsylvania, prototype for the roller coaster. The Switchback opened the anthracite coal regions of eastern Pennsylvania when it began operation in May 1827. Originally, empty cars were returned to the mines by mules; in 1846, the mules were replaced by stationary steam engines. Tourists were carried as early as 1829, but it was largely a coal-hauling operation until steam locomotive railroads began servicing the area directly. In 1874 the Switchback was converted to a tourist railroad that rivaled Niagara Falls as a place to visit. After 59 years of successful operation as a tourist attraction, it ceased operating in 1933, partially as a result of the Great Depression. http://www.switchbackgravityrr.org/
We rode on it; a car is pulled up by machinery to the top of a mountain where the car is put upon a track and it runs downhill for twelve miles until it comes to the foot of another mountain, where it is pulled up again and will run downhill to where we started without any power. It was built in an early day, to carry coal from Summit Hill to "Mauch Chunk," and the only way to get the car back was to pull it with mules. A stable was built on the back for the mules to ride down in. One day, they forgot to take the mules which made the mules mad and all the coaxing would not make them go down after the car. This of course was before they had machinery at each end to raise the car.
We stayed in this little city for a few days and then went on to Washington then off to New York and last to Boston. How I did enjoy Boston so, for there is so much history there. We saw the old North Church where the lantern was hung out of the steeple if the British soldiers were to move and how Paul Revere was on his horse ready to warn all the people on his way to Lexington. That gave the minute men time to meet them and which they did at the bridge and drove them, the English, back and a grand monument stands on the bridge of soldier with gun in hand. We went in the house where Dorothy [Hancock? space left blank] and noted people were and they had get to get out in the night. The house is now kept as one of the historical places and everything is kept as it was at that time. We also went up on Bunker Hill and in Faneuil Hall. We took all day at Concord and on our way back we stopped at the home of Mr. Bronson Alcott and Louisa and passed the home of Hawthorne and Emerson.
Then we went to Salem and in the witch house and stood in the room where eighteen witches were condemned to be hung and were hung. Then we went to the house of seven gables, which in an early time was the home of pirates and we went through the private stairways only wide enough for one person to go up. It is now kept as a sort of museum. We then went down to Plymouth and stood upon the "rock" and took pictures
of it. So after traveling all over Boston and going through Cambridge College which finished our education, as we went through one door and out the other. So we can now say we have been through college.
I think our next trip was to the great fair at St. Louis [the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904] and a magnificent one it was. Made other fairs look small. It was in full view of the Mississippi River and everything known in the world was there. Will and I put in a whole day in one building and found out later we had not seen one quarter of it. It was a wonderful fair.
Now comes our greatest trip. We started and went to Chicago, then to St. Paul, then to Seattle, then to the fair at Portland, Oregon, [the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition] and then down the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco, then down to San Juan and on our way back to Salt Lake over the mountains to Denver, Colorado and home by way of Chicago. St. Paul is a fine city built solidly of stone and lies on the Mississippi River high up. It is the county seat and has a beautiful capitol as handsome as the Congressional Library at Washington. Minneapolis is only ten miles from St. Paul and is a fine city and is noted for its great flour mills and fall of the Mississippi; we took the cars at St. Paul for Seattle. A three thousand mile ride, a wonderful ride through Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Utah and into the State of Washington. It was a great ride over plains, mountains, prairies. Deserts and sage brush and cactus and rabbits. We would go for miles and miles without seeing a house. We went through the "Bad lands" and not far from the spot where Custer and his men were killed [Battle of Little Bighorn, 25 June 1876] we followed a beautiful stream through the mountains. As still as a looking glass with the great forest reflected in it and the great rocks with stripes of different colors.
After passing through the Rocky Mountains, we came into the Cascade Mountains and it was here that we got a grand view of Mt. Ranier. A wonderful old peak always covered with snow. A great camping place with a beautiful park at its base. We are nearing Seattle now and I was really sorry that the wonderful trip is ended. Seattle is a wonderful city of 200,000 lying on Puget Sound. One of the finest harbors on the Pacific Coast. The city is on hills and solidly built. This is a great lumbering city and also no end to the salmon industry. Across the sound is a large island, Vashon Island. It is on a high, rocky piece of land. We went over and found it covered with elegant houses. This is a port where ships are loaded for the Orient and it seemed good to me to see the old sailing ships and very few steamers. We went to a great forest of the Douglas Firs. We came upon fir trees that stood in a clump and so close together that we could hardly wedge through them and they were each eight feet in diameter. This is a great ship building place for the Government. Tacoma, a large city at the foot of Puget Sound and about twenty miles from Seattle. Now we are on the train for Portland, Oregon, a ride of eighty miles and very delightful before we reached Portland. We crossed with our train the Columbia River on a boat and were soon in Portland, the train going beside the fairground. Portland is a fine city of 160,000, lying on the Wilamette River, ten miles above the Columbia River. It lies in a valley with Mt. Hood for a background. This is called the Rose City and well it might be, for roses cover the buildings; coming up to the second stories are masses of blooms. The Fair is small but beautiful. The Oregon building is made of logs all four feet in
diameter and the garden of roses cannot be surpassed.
Will and I took a sail on the Columbia River on a stern wheeler. This was the most beautiful ride I ever had. The beauties of the Hudson were nothing in comparison. We sailed for miles through a lane with mountains on either side and in one place a sheet of water falling from a great height turning into vapor or mist before it reached the ground called the "Maiden Vail." [sic] He sailed up the river for fifty miles until we came to a lock which lifted us thirty feet to overcome a falls. Our boat then turned around and went back into the lock and was lowered to the river level.
This river is wonderful for its salmon and every way is used to catch the fish and so many canneries. The city of Portland gets its drinking water from the melting snow of Mt. Hood. Now before we start for San Francisco, I want to tell you all I saw of your Grandfather Randall's family. Huntley, [Huntley Burnham Sejourney Randall, 1875-?] when a little boy, was very delicate and he spent about two years with us and regained his health. He was a dear little boy and we loved him. Ferris [Ferris Seaman Randall, 1876-?] was his father's boy and were so happy in each other's company. Chandler [Chandler Corrydon Randall, 1881-1953] was a holy terror. Just as kind as anyone could be but full of Hell. He could throw dice with Grandfather Thursday [?] and was a hale fellow with everybody. Mort [Mortimer Allen Randall, 1885-?] was a grand little boy who we all loved but always a great sufferer with headaches. Yet withal very industrious. Now what can we say of Elrose, [Elrose Anna Randall, 1883-1948] nothing but good, for could anyone do a finer or more noble thing than she has done for you all? It is not necessary for me to tell you that you can never forget what she has done for you. [This spinster aunt was a second mother, after the death of their mother in 1918.] And I know it will be the aim of your lives to always stand by her.
Your great-grandparents I knew well and your four beautiful great-aunts [?]. All good people who looked upon your Grandfather Randall as their main stay and use to bleed him pretty freely. Your great-Uncle James Randall was a very high spirited man and was really the father of the grand Boulevard that is the pride of Detroit yet he was ridiculed by the city when he proposed it. He was also the founder of the Detroit and Orchard Lake trolley line. His death was a loss to the city for he died young and to think it was hastened by the drowning death of his son, Tom [?-?], and he was never the same after. The son was duck shooting at the mouth of the Detroit River and it was never known how it happened, but he lost his life and I have forgotten whether his body was ever found.
From a history of Bob-Lo Island, 18 miles downriver from DetroitÂ…Tom Davey Randall went out duck hunting one night and disappeared in a sudden squall. When he failed to return and his body wasn't found, James Randall hired spiritualists and spent the winter on the island participating in seances in hopes of finding his son. The body was found the next spring when the ice melted. James Randall died in Detroit in 1911. http://detnews.com/history/boblo/boblo.htm
We are now [1905] starting on a ship for San Francisco, a sail of eight hundred miles. We could not get a stateroom so had to go steerage (that is bunks down in the bottom of the boat way below the water line). It was a glorious sail down the Willamette into the Columbia and out on the Pacific Ocean. He stopped at a little place, Astoria, which was once a [fur] trading post [1811] of John Jacob Astor [millionaire fur trader and merchant,1763-1848] and named after him. This is at the mouth of the Columbia River. The boat took on a lot of lumber and soon got under wav. The final thing I saw as we entered the ocean was a great whale that raised about thirty feet out of the water and was so near that I could see his eyes. The trip down the ocean was grand. The water perfectly smooth with fish jumping in every direction and the spouting of whales and with the rock-bound coast in some places the mountain of rocks were higher than the clouds. In fact, it is a rocky coast from the mouth of the Columbia River to the Golden
Gate. Just as the sun was rising over San Francisco, we sailed into the Golden Gate. What a beautiful sight it was going through that great gate made with a mountain of rock on each side. It was a grand sight and such a harbor as we sailed into-a great bay, large enough to hold the Navy of our country. I was highly pleased with the looks of this great city with its broad streets and large hills. Many of the street cars are drawn with a cable. Market Street, the main street, is very broad and the sidewalks as wide as some streets in New York. The "knobs" here is the 5th Avenue of the city. [No, nobs; the city's elite were "nabobs," ( title of governors of the Mogul empire in India) shortened to "nobs."] Such places as Leland Stanford, Macklyn O'Brien [?-?] and the Hopkin's, the latter was presented to the city by a daughter of Mark Hopkins, and is just as the family left it, magnificently furnished and an Art annex attached with wonderful works of art. [Replaced by the Mark Hopkins Hotel in 1926.] The banqueting hall was an immense room with a large oblong opening over the center and above that a glass sky light the same size. This house was made of wood and every room had a different kind coming from all parts of the world. All the rooms had beautiful mantles [sic] with exquisite hand carving and the moulding around the room had what the room was intended for. Great marble stairs and works of art decorated the walls. This house was on such high ground that you could look over the city and see the Golden Gate. The yard was full of marble. This house was first one of many on these "knobs" that was destroyed by the earthquake. Wasn't that too bad.
These men had already made their fortunes when they were among the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad. The home of Leland Stanford [1824-1893] was on California Street where the Stanford Court Hotel stands today. Visitors to the magnificent Stanford home entered through a circular entrance hall, bathed in amber light from a glass dome in the ceiling seventy feet above. The family of Mark Hopkins [1813-1878] lived just up the street, where the Mark Hopkins Hotel now stands. Topped by a crown of towers, gables and steeples, it looked like a fanciful medieval castle. http://www.californiahistory.net/text_only/7_4_1.htm
Our next trip was through China Town. The Chinese own twelve blocks in the heart of the city. Some of their buildings were fine but mostly poor and dirty.
We crossed the bay over to Oakland. This is a fine city, and almost touches Berkeley where the University of California in Berkeley is a grand place surrounded as it is on three sides by hills but with a grand opening that you see the great bay and the Golden Gate. This place is so sheltered that you miss the strong winds that they have in San Francisco. We found the old "missions" that they had built by some old Jesuits at a time when Indians were the only occupants. I thought as I sat on the door step what had taken place throughout the world, and when this great city was covered with tents by the gold seekers, as there were few houses, and see it today with all that money can do to make it beautiful, and its wonderful shipping to all parts of the world, and we might say a place of refuge for those who can afford the luxury of that glorious city. We went down to the cliff House this on the ocean built on an overhanging rock and near the island that has so many seals. We were there just as the sun was going down and we watched the hundreds of seals and thousands of birds getting ready for the night and just at that time saw a full rigged ship sailing out of the Golden Gate, a beautiful sight.
One Morning we got on a Southern Pacific train and went for sixty miles down to a place called San Jose a beautiful little city of 60,000. We were right in among the palms, elegant avenues of them. We were riding up from a little park and I was sitting by an Irishman as we were going through a lane of palm trees. I said to Pat [= Irishman, probably derogatory] how beautiful they were. When he said "but what are they good for, you can't chop them and should you, you can't plant them. And should you be able to, you can't burn them, so what the devil are they good for."
We are eating today and a lady near our table was telling of the beauty and love one
had for Los Angeles. She said she once dreamed that she died and went to heaven and in being shown around she came to a cell in which a beautiful woman was chained to the wall. She was shocked and asked the guide what it meant. He said that woman is from Los Angeles and if we took the chains off she would go back.
We took a thirty mile trolley ride through a (pg. 118 last line) [?] orchard and great fruit houses where they were taken and dried. You will see acres of wooden boxes filled with the fruit in the open air drying as they have no rain during the summer and no flies. Coming down to this place we passes the Leland Stanford University built as a monument to his son. We had friends in San Francisco who took great pride in showing us the city. We spent a delightful time in Golden Gate Park. A great outdoors for the great city, having 1200 acres and the finest collections of animals I ever saw. A marble music stand presented by the great sugar king of Hawaii [Claus Spreckels, creator of sugar empire in California and in the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1883-1900, lived 1828 -1908] is in a beautiful grove of eucalyptus trees. And the park was full of the dear little quail, so gentle they would come right up to you. I forgot to speak of the marble temple and amphitheatre of the University of California in Berkeley. All the college exercises are held here. It is circular with stone seats around it. There is no roof over it like the coliseum of Rome. Maud Adams [?-?] gave a great play here some years ago. We are heading for home and will take the cars to Portland, as our ticket is only good from that place.
We cross the bay to take out train and we are soon on board and have said good-bye to Frisco. We have to cross the Sacramento River on a boat large enough to take our whole train on and then we go sailing over a level dried up tract of land. Even the small rivers are dry. Nothing green but the leaves on the fern trees. We pass immense fields of wheat, some cut and others being cut. And they have great machines that cut and others being cut. And it takes twenty-six mules to draw it. All farm work is done on a large scale. We rode all day through this level piece of land and at last came to the foot hills, the forerunner of the mountains. It is a moonlit night and how grand the mountains look. We can see anything we want -profiles, castles with great battlements and the painted rocks and the quiet little river. We were sailing along among rocks and forest when all at once the great old Mt. Shasta came into view. What a sight it was towering up so high with it's [sic] snow-capped peak and the full moon casting its rays upon it.
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Continued under the notes for Ferris's sister, Elrose
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