Rodolphus Ogilvie Randall
RODOLPHUS OGILVIE RANDALL, Jeweler and Queensware Merchant, was born at Brockport, Monroe County, N. Y., April 15, 1840, and is a son of Myrick 0. and Lucy N. (Kingsbury) Randall, natives, respectively, of Vermont and New York. He was reared and educated at Brockport, and while quite a youth learned the trade of watchmaker. At the age of eighteen years he went to New York City, and there, under James M. Bottom, at the time the leading watchmaker of this country, perfected his trade. He came to Gadsden in September. 1858, took charge of Kyle, Wynne & Co.'s jewelry department, and remained with them until January, 1860. At that date his employers dissolved partnership, and he purchased their jewelry stock and started in business for himself. March, 1862, he enlisted as a private soldier in Company A, Thirty-first Alabama Infantry, and with that command served one year. Leaving the service at Vicksburg, he returned to Gadsden. resumed the jewelry business and followed it until 1872. His was the first jewelry store, exclusively, established at Gadsden.
From 1872 to 1875 he devoted his time to life insurance business, and spent part of that period at Mobile, Atlanta and Louisville. In the fall of the last-named year he returned to Gadsden, and in the latter part of 1886 established his present business. He has the finest establishment of the kind in North Alabama.
February 22, 1860, Mr. Randall married Miss Josephine Turrentine, daughter of the late Gen. D. C. Turrentine, and has had born to him ten children, eight of whom are now living, namely : Carrie L. (Mrs. John L. Caldwell), James W., Robert E., Ruth, Bianca, Joseph P., Edith and Daniel M.
The family are connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Mr. Randall is a Knight of Honor and a Knight Templar Mason.
In addition to his mercantile business, Mr. Randall is vice-president of the First National Bank, president of the Gadsden Metallic Paint Company, and is more or less interested in several other of Gadsden's leading enterprises.
The senior Mr. Randall was a watchmaker and jeweler for many years. Of his three children the subject of this sketch was the eldest. His second son, Eugene A., was a jeweler also, and died at the age of thirty years. His only daughter, Bianca, is the wife of C. F. Miller, of Chattanooga, Tenn. The old gentleman is yet living, and is seventy-one years of age. His father was Nathaniel Randall, a farmer by occupation, born at Pembrook, Mass.; married Betsy Brown, who, like himself, was of old Puritan stock. He reared a family of eight sons and two daughters, all but two of whom married and brought up families. The Kingsbury family is also of Massachusetts Puritan stock, and lived near Boston. There are living in various States of the Union a large number of Kingsburys, all descendants of the same stock.
Source: McCalley, Henry, Northern Alabama : historical and biographical. Birmingham, AL: Smith & De Land, 1888, pp. 835.