Henry M. Randall Biography

Henry M. Randall

Henry M. Randall was born in Middle Island, Suffolk County, in 1844. He was the son of Austin D. Randall and Mary E. (Ritch) Randall. As a child, he was educated at district schools and assisted his father with working at the family farm.
Randall left home a the age of 17 to become a sailor. This was the start of a decades-long career as a sailor, sea captain, and merchant. At the age of 25, he became captain of a schooner, named the “Edith”. Throughout his carrier, he was the master of multiple ships, including the “Edith”, the “Mabel Thomas”, the “Hattie B. Kelsey”, the “Florence Randall”, and the “Lucy H. Randall”. He commissioned the building of ships including a three-mast schooner, the “Mabel Thomas”, and the “Mary A. Randall”.
In 1881, Randall retired from directly captaining ships, and became a merchant and businessman, but he continued to own ships and superintended their use in merchant ventures.
Randall married his first wife, Emily (Wines) Randall of Suffolk County in 1869. Emily died in January, 1872. In 1875, he married his second wife, Florence (Avery) Randall, of Gales Ferry, Connecticut. She died in 1881. In 1883, he married his third wife, Marie Estella (Scanlon) Randall of Charleston, South Carolina.
Randall was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He also was a member of the Independent Order of Good Templars , the local masonic fraternity, and the Royal Arcanum (a fraternity that provided life insurance to members).
Henry Randall spent much of his life living in the village of Port Jefferson, in the town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, New York. The village was a local port-town and a center for shipbuilding. In addition to the village's shipping and shipbuilding businesses, Randall was involved in a variety of other ventures, including coal, lumber, hardware, lime, and cement in the Port Jefferson area.
Randall was part of a group of six sea captains that founded the Bank of Port Jefferson in 1889. He served as the bank’s first chairman and spent some time, also, as the bank’s president. At one point in time or another before 1906, he also was a director of the Bank of Northport, a director of First National Bank of Huntington, a director of First National Bank of Woodridge, a director of Port Jefferson Electric Light Company, a director of the Suwasset Oyster Company, a director of the Suffolk and Queens Insurance Company, a director of the Brown and Fleming Contracting Company of New York, President of the Montauk Oyster Company, and first vice-president of N.E. Oysterman’s Protective Association. In 1907-1911, he was president of Montauk Bank.
Henry Randall joined the Prohibition Party in 1881. He ran as a Prohibition Party candidate to be one of the excise commissioners for the Town of Brookhaven in 1890. He ran again for excise commissioner in 1892, receiving 757 votes to only 739 votes for Democratic candidate William S. Swezey, and was elected as an excise commissioner. As a town excise commissioner, he sought to take action against alcohol sales. He was somewhat limited in that by the fact that the other two excise commissioners were pro-license. But he did use his position to look for instances where alcohol sellers violated the law, sought to take legal action against them, and where possible attempted to revoke their licenses.
In 1893, Randall was nominated to be the Prohibition Party candidate for president of the Town of Brookhaven board of Trustees. The chairman of the town’s Democratic Party decided that they would back Randall instead of nominating their own separate candidate. Randall received 1,194 votes and was elected as president of the Town of Brookhaven board of Trustees.
In the same year, he served on the committee of the Suffolk County Prohibition Party. In 1896, Randall was one of the New York electors for Prohibition Party presidential candidate Joshua Levering. He also was a delegate at the Prohibition Party state convention. Randall was one of the electors for Prohibition Party 1900 presidential candidate John G. Wooley in New York State.
He was the Prohibition Party's 1898 candidate for Congress in New York’s first congressional district, receiving 557 votes, 1.21% of the total vote.
The Prohibition Party nominated Henry Randall as its 1906 candidate for Governor of New York. He campaigned on a platform that included support for prohibition, support for having the state railroad system publicly owned, and support for municipal ownership of public utilities. He received 15,985 votes, 1.08% of the total vote.
It appears that at some point before 1915, Randall’s third wife died and in 1915, he married his 4th wife Margaret (Hayes) Randall. In 1916, they had a son, Henry M. Randall Jr.
Randall was treasurer of the National Temperance Society in 1922 and served on its board of managers.
Henry M. Randall Sr. died on December 7th, 1924.

-- Contributed by Jonathan Makeley

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