"Bridging the Generations" The History of Old Randolph 1855 - 1960
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Gardner Randolph (1796 - 1866) In 1855, a man named Gardner Randolph and his family came to the Blue River Valley. Gardner Randolph was not an educated man but he was deeply religious and had a desire to start a plantation like those in the south where he came from. He was pro slavery and remained in Illinois until the Kansas-Nebraska Bill became law. He laid claim with his family to all land within a 5 mile radius of Fancy Creek hoping to influence those in Kansas to become a slave state. Gardner Randolph had based his hold to the land on the right of discovery, priority and settlement. He neglected to follow any governing laws or regulations of settlements of public lands. The Randolph's had lived on the land but did not locate someone on each quarter-section so they could hold their claim. When Edward Secrest came to Randolph and began to threaten the rightful ownership of the claim, Randolph saw this and realized that he might lose his land. This is when he began to plot out a town he called Randolph. He constructed two more buildings and a blacksmith shop because in Kansas "three smokes and a blacksmith shop made a town". Sometime between 1856 and 1859, J.K. Whitson and Britton Randolph went to the U.S. Land Office in Ogden to settle their dispute. When they got there they discovered that neither man had a rightful claim on the land and that whoever was the first to to get back and to begin to settle there would have the claim. Randolph lost and J.K. Whitson changed the name of the town to Waterville.
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