Bio: Randall, Thomas E. (1881)
 

Surnames: Foster, Hall, Johnson, Hanson, Randall

----Source: History of Northern Wisconsin (Eau Claire County, Wis.) 1881, pages 330-331

THOMAS E. RANDALL, Eau Claire, was born in the town of Parsonsfield, York Co., Me., June 6, 1813. He was not quite a year old when his parents, John and Sarah Hanson Randall, moved to the town of Baldwin, now Sebago, Me., where they lived until he was nine years old, when they went to what is now the town of Maxfield, Penobscot Co., Me., where he lived until he was twenty-one years old, chiefly engaged in lumbering, for his father. He was educated in the public schools and China Academy, and is a graduate of the latter institute, which is situated in the town of China, Kennebec Co., Me. After graduating and reaching the age of twenty-one, he went to Elizabethtown, N. J., and taught school there four months. He was then engaged as foreman of public works, grading hills in Jersey City (or three months. He was employed for a year on the New York & Erie Railway, doing the first work on that road as superintendent for a firm of contractors employed in its construction. In the Fall of 1836, he came to Illinois and engaged in the construction of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, as superintendent for contractors until June, 1837, when he obtained a position in the engineering department of the Illinois Central Railway, remaining there four months. He was then employed for six weeks on the Northern Cross railway, from Danville to Quincy. He afterward was engaged in farming in Muscatine Co., Iowa, for nine years. In 1845, he came to Eau Claire County. He was married in Rockingham, now a part of Davenport, Iowa, March 17, 1843, to Maria Jane Foster, who was born at Michigan City, Ind. She was a daughter of John Foster, and died April 29, 1869. They had seven children, four of whom died. The three living are Elba Howard, Mary A. and Charles E. Mr. Randall's present wife was Mrs. Mary A. Hall, nee Johnson, who was born in the town of Harreford, Lower Canada, and when eleven years of age moved with her parents to Vermont, near Burlington, where she was reared. Mr. Randall has several times been Justice of the Peace, and member of the School Board, and, since coming here, has been prominently identified with the business interests of the place.