THE RANDALL FAMILY 5 1
170 Newbury St., Boston, Sept. 27, 1S95. Dear Mr. Abbot,
I send you all that occurs to me about my classmate Dr. Randall. Use it, or any part of it, as you please. As far as it goes, I believe it is all true. Nobody knew him intimately, in the usual sense of the word.
If you need the place and date of his birth, it was. Boston, Nov. 6, 18 13. His father's house was in Winter street, where Shepard & Norwell's store now is. I do not know whether he was born there. He was a great-grand- son of Samuel Adams, the great Revolutionary patriot, by his mother's side. He had two sisters, one of whom, I believe, survives him — very cultivated ladies after the style of half a century ago ; in fact, of any time.
I am sorry I cannot do more and better for you in
regard to him.
Yours very truly,
Thomas Gushing. Francis E. Abbot, Ph.D., Cambridge, Mass.
Inclosed in the above letter, Mr. Gushing sent a " Copy of Dr. H. Blanchard's letter in relation to Dr. Randall, "^ as follows, with an occasional parenthesis of his own : —
" Now with regard to our classmate Randall. Randall was a marked and unique character, but still there was little variety in it. He was not one of whom you would expect to hear anecdotes, nor was he, as far as I know, ever a subject of or for jokes. As you justly said, he lived mostly in himself and had comparatively few friends. Our classmate Ingersoll, of Cambridge, was his dear friend in College. He was a young man of great purity of char-
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