George Randall Biography

b. 1832 d. 1908
Married – Caroline Roos

George Randall was born in Chesterfield, New Hampshire in 1832. He came to Canada in 1854 with his brother Shrubel H Randall and Uncle Marshall Farr who had a contract to build certain stations and freight sheds etc on the Grand Trunk Railway lines being built at that time west of Guelph. One of the stations they built was the one in Preston. This is where George met and married Caroline Roos in 1855. Farr was killed Mar 12 1857 in the Desjardine Canal disaster near Hamilton. Geroge and Shrubel Randall assumed the railway contracts and satisfactorily completed the work. In 1857, he and William Hespeler, became partners in the establishment of Granite Mills in Waterloo, a facility for making flour for export. The distillery, established to use surplus grain, soon became more profitable than the grist mill. The leftover grain mash was fed to cattle in farm off site. Joseph E. Seagram began working in the distillery c.1870s. After 1860 Randall had purchased Spring Valley Farm just west of Waterloo, but in 1873 he bought the large home of Isaac Weaver who had moved to North Dakota. This site is now the location of the Clarica (Mutual Life). Randall had a number of other business ventures in Wat Co. In 1863 he owned a sawmill in Hespeler which cut lumber and timber for the Woolen Mills that later became Dominion Woolen & Worsted Mills. After he sold the Waterloo Distillery to Seagram in 1883, he and William Roos established a wholesale grocery & liquor warehouse on Queen St in Berlin. Other involvements in community include Director of Wat Mut Fire Ins Co for 53 yr and was its president until his death. He was also Chairman of the first Berlin & Wat Hospital Board and a charter member of Wat Horticultural Society. In local politics he was Reeve of Waterloo Village in 1870-72 and Mayor of the Town in 1878.

Sources
1. Waterloo Mt Hope Cemetery Records
2. Obituary, Waterloo Chronicle, December 31 1908
3. Marg Rowell et al, Welcome to Waterloo.
4. 100 Years of Progress in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada : Semi-Centennial Souvenier 1856-1906, Waterloo: Chronicle-Telegraph. 1906
5. J. E. Seagram Biography, Seagram Collection, City of Waterloo.
6. Historical Atlas of Waterloo & Wellington Counties.
7. Grassroots Government: Biographies of Waterloo Township Councillors, Eliz Bloomfield & Linda Foster, Caribou Imprints, 1993
8. Waterloo County Councillors : A Collective Biography.
9. Wat Hist Soc. 1917 Vol 5 Wat Co Railway Hist
10. Waterloo Chronicle, June 20, 1957