The Randall family’s journey across America was a slow, steady march that took more than three centuries to complete. From a seaside settlement on the Atlantic coast to a sun-soaked suburb on the Pacific, our family’s westward movement spanned some 3,000 miles over roughly 330 years. Ours is a story not of overnight transformation, but of quiet persistence, each generation taking its turn pushing the family a little further west.
Rhode Island Beginnings
Although he was clearly of English origins, where exactly our progenitor John Randall came from originally is unknown. What we do know is that he first appears in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1660. Perched on Aquidneck Island in Narragansett Bay, Newport was a bustling seaport with a reputation for tolerance and independence. It was also home to America’s first Baptist church, founded by Roger Williams, and John and his wife Elizabeth were among its most devout members. Religion and community mattered deeply to early New Englanders, and the Randalls were no exception.
But John was a restless soul and city life was not for him. In 1663, he and Elizabeth joined a band of settlers who set out to tame the colony’s wild western frontier. They helped establish what would become Westerly, Rhode Island—a move that, by today’s reckoning, would seem like a paltry 40 mile treck. But in the 17th century, 40 miles meant a day or more of trecherous travel, often on foot or horseback, through dense forests, across rocky terrain, and over unbridged rivers. The settlers had to clear land, build homes, and establish farms from scratch—all under the looming uncertainty of colonial boundary disputes and Native American resistance.
Westerly’s founding was more than just a real estate venture. It was a political statement. Rhode Island’s claim to its western boundary was contested by Connecticut, and planting settlers on the disputed lands was a way to assert jurisdiction. But this frontier gamble eventually backfired for the Randall family. After years of argument, the colonial boundary was formally settled in 1720—with the Pawcatuck River marking the division. Unfortunately, the Randall homestead ended up on the Connecticut side. With John deceased by that time, the family, now header by John Jr., had a difficult choice to make - return east and remain Rhode Islanders, or stay on their land and swear allegiance to the Connecticut Colony. They stayed.
The Connecticut Years
For several decades, the family remained on their land in what was not Stonington, Connecticut. But land was always a finite resource in New England, especially for younger sons. Benjamin Randall, John’s grandson and the fifth of six boys, knew he wouldn't inherit enough to support his own growing family. Around 1733, Benjamin moved about 50 miles inland to the young but rapidly growing town of Colchester.
Colchester had been settled just a few decades earlier and, by mid-century, had become a hub of farming and local industry. There, Benjamin and his wife Ruth raised ten children, including Sylvester, who lived out his own life farming in Colchester. But like generations before and after him, Sylvester’s own son, Abram, eventually faced a familiar problem—too many heirs and too little land. So, when opportunity knocked in the early 1800s, he answered.
Bouncing Around the Empire State
Abrams grandfather, Abraham Wightman, was a land speculator with a vision. He had purchased several tracts of land in New York’s fertile Mohawk Valley—then still a developing region on the frontier – in anticipation of an eventual land boom. Encouraged by this opportunity, Abram and Margaret packed up and moved northwest to Herkimer County, New York - about 200 miles westward from Colchester.
The Mohawk Valley was more than just farmland. It was the main artery through which the future Erie Canal would run, connecting the Hudson River to the Great Lakes and opening up the interior of the continent. The canal’s completion in 1825 revolutionized commerce, allowing Midwestern grain and goods to reach the Atlantic world. But this revolution was not all good news for the Mohawk Valley farmers who saw their incomes deteriorate due to competition from the more fertile lands further west. Like many others, the Randalls eventually shifted their focus to dairy, joining a regional cheese-making boom that supplied growing eastern cities like New York and Philadelphia.
Abram’s son Abial, born in Colchester and raised in the Mohawk Valley, inherited the family’s restless spirit. Beginning around 1810, he and his wife Ursula began a long and meandering migration through upstate New York. They moved first to Williamstown in Oswego County, then to Vernon, then to the fledgling towns of Sweden and Ogden in what was then Genesee County (and later became Monroe County).
Each move seemed motivated by a combination of economic uncertainty and the search for financial opportunities. Like so many early American families, the Randalls were improvisers, moving west one county at a time, trying to find a foothold in an ever-changing economy. By the 1820s, the family had settled in Ogden, where they remained for several decades before relocating to nearby Riga, New York.
It was in this region that Abial’s grandson Isaac—better known as Wilmoth—was born. And it would be Wilmoth who took the next giant leap: west to Michigan.
Hard Times in Michigan
The mid-1800s were a time of intense migration to the Great Lakes region, fueled by the promise of cheap land through the federal land grant system. In 1856 and again in 1857, Wilmoth secured two land grants in Gratiot County, Michigan—totaling 200 acres near the village of Ithaca. The move was ambitious, but like many pioneering efforts, it came with hardship.
Records show that by 1860, the family had returned to New York, likely due to financial difficulty or perhaps the failing health of Wilmoth’s aging parents. They moved back and forth several times in the 1860s—Hartland in Niagara County, then Barre in Orleans County—before finally returning permanently to Michigan by 1869. This time they settled in Eaton County, in the township of Oneida.
Still, the difficulties continued. In a letter from 1883, Wilmoth’s wife Paulena wrote to their son George about his father, “He’s not contented here… If we can't sell the place, we will rent it… It will be better than to stay here.” By 1884, they had moved yet again—this time to the village of Mesick in Wexford County, where several of their children had already relocated.
Off to Arizona
Wilmoth’s son William lived a difficult life in Wexford County. He farmed and worked in the local potato warehouse in Glengary, but his first marriage ended in abandonment, leaving him to raise three children alone and in abject poverty. Yet from this hardship came an unexpected breakthrough.
His son Claude Randall left home as a teenager and, through sheer determination, put himself through school. He attended DeKalb Normal School in Illinois and took various teaching jobs across rural Bureau and LaSalle Counties. In 1910, he married fellow teacher Lena Kaiser, and together they pursued a life built around education.
In 1912, they moved west again—this time to Phoenix, Arizona, where Claude served as Assistant Superintendent of Schools and Lena taught. Claude spent his summers at the University of California, Berkeley, eventually earning a bachelor's degree in 1921. He later completed a master's degree at Stanford University in 1924. These weren’t just academic achievements—they were the culmination of generations of striving for stability, knowledge, and progress.
After his time at Stanford, Claude took a position in Ontario, San Bernardino County, California, as Superintendent of Schools. At last, the Randalls were firmly established in the Golden State.
California Here We Come!
Claude and Lena’s son—my grandfather, Louis Randall—brought the family the final few miles west. In the 1940s, he moved to the San Gabriel Valley, just 30 miles inland from the Pacific Coast. And in 1983, when my little sister was born at Santa Monica Hospital, within view of the Pacific Ocean, we had finally made it to the edge of the continent. A family that had initially set down roots in colonial Rhode Island, just steps from the Atlantic, had at last reached the shores of the Pacific. The 3000-mile trek took us a sometimes grueling 330 years to complete – a distance I can now fly in a meager 330 minutes!
THE RANDALL FAMILY GREAT MIGRATION
[David>Bruce>Louis>Claude>William>Isaac>Abial>Abram>Sylvester>Benjamin>John Jr.>John]
