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John Randel Jr.
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John Randel Jr.
John Randel Jr. (1787–1865) was an American surveyor, cartographer, civil engineer, and inventor from Albany, New York who completed a full survey of Manhattan Island from 1808 to 1817, in service of the creation of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which determined that New York City – which consisted at the time of only Manhattan – would in the future be laid out in a rectilinear grid of streets.
Randel is also noted for having received one of the largest awards at the time as a result of his breach of contract lawsuit against the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Company. The company's appeals of the judgment went to the United States Supreme Court, which affirmed the award, as well as Randel's right to directly receive canal tolls in order to collect it.
Randel was born in Albany, New York on December 3, 1787 to a large and close family; he was one of the middle children. His father, John Sr. (1755–1823), was a second generation Scotch-Irish American who was a jeweler and brass founder, while his mother Catherine (or Katurah or Keturah; 1761–1836) was born in New Jersey to a land-rich family. John Sr. served in the American Revolutionary War as a private, and married Catherine in 1780, a year after he was released from his regiment for the injuries he had sustained.
John Jr.'s formal education encompassed only primary school, where he learned to respect the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment. As a young man, Randel would be deeply committed to reason, but was also a religious man, disagreeing, for instance with Thomas Paine's views about religion expressed in The Age of Reason. Raised in a very tight-knit Presbyterian community, Randel attended church regularly, and strictly held the Sabbath as a day of rest; one of his workers later complained that they were unable to keep up with their correspondence because Randel would not let him write letters on Sundays. While working in Manhattan, Randel sometimes crossed the Hudson River by ferry to attend the First Presbyterian Church in Orange, New Jersey, where relatives of his mother were elders. It was on these visits that he met the woman who became his first wife, his cousin, Matilda Harrison, whom he married in 1813.
After his formal education ended, Randel was apprenticed, possibly as early as age 12 although more likely at 16, to Simeon De Witt, who was the Surveyor General of New York State. De Witt was familiar with Randel, as both families were from Albany, a city of only 7,500 at the time, and Randel's father had served with De Witt's brother in the American Revolution. It was a time in American history when many young men went into surveying, at least for a short time, as there was a great need for them as the empty places – empty of whites, anyway – began to become settled.
When Randel finished his apprenticeship and became an assistant surveyor, he interpreted the field reports of other surveyors to draft maps based on them of land in the Adirondack Mountains and on the Oneida Reservation, mapped the Albany Turnpike between Albany and Schenectady and the Great Western Turnpike from Albany to Cooperstown, and surveyed property lots in Albany and in Central New York, particularly Oneida County
Despite his meager experience, through a recommendation by De Witt, one of three commissioners charged with developing a plan for the future layout of New York City's streets, and approval by Gouverneur Morris, one of the other commissioners and the unofficial president of the commission, Randel, at age 20, was hired to replace the commission's original chief surveyor, Charles Frederick Loss, who had proved to be incompetent.
Marguerite Holloway, Randel's biographer, divides his work in New York into three periods. The first, from 1808 to 1810, resulted in the 1811 publication of the Commissioners' Plan. Phase two ran from 1811 to 1817, during which he completed the necessary geodetic surveying and inscribed the grid into the land. The final phase was from around 1818 to 1821, when Randel and his first wife Matilda became high quality cartographers, makers of maps.
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John Randel Jr.
John Randel Jr. (1787–1865) was an American surveyor, cartographer, civil engineer, and inventor from Albany, New York who completed a full survey of Manhattan Island from 1808 to 1817, in service of the creation of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which determined that New York City – which consisted at the time of only Manhattan – would in the future be laid out in a rectilinear grid of streets.
Randel is also noted for having received one of the largest awards at the time as a result of his breach of contract lawsuit against the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Company. The company's appeals of the judgment went to the United States Supreme Court, which affirmed the award, as well as Randel's right to directly receive canal tolls in order to collect it.
Randel was born in Albany, New York on December 3, 1787 to a large and close family; he was one of the middle children. His father, John Sr. (1755–1823), was a second generation Scotch-Irish American who was a jeweler and brass founder, while his mother Catherine (or Katurah or Keturah; 1761–1836) was born in New Jersey to a land-rich family. John Sr. served in the American Revolutionary War as a private, and married Catherine in 1780, a year after he was released from his regiment for the injuries he had sustained.
John Jr.'s formal education encompassed only primary school, where he learned to respect the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment. As a young man, Randel would be deeply committed to reason, but was also a religious man, disagreeing, for instance with Thomas Paine's views about religion expressed in The Age of Reason. Raised in a very tight-knit Presbyterian community, Randel attended church regularly, and strictly held the Sabbath as a day of rest; one of his workers later complained that they were unable to keep up with their correspondence because Randel would not let him write letters on Sundays. While working in Manhattan, Randel sometimes crossed the Hudson River by ferry to attend the First Presbyterian Church in Orange, New Jersey, where relatives of his mother were elders. It was on these visits that he met the woman who became his first wife, his cousin, Matilda Harrison, whom he married in 1813.
After his formal education ended, Randel was apprenticed, possibly as early as age 12 although more likely at 16, to Simeon De Witt, who was the Surveyor General of New York State. De Witt was familiar with Randel, as both families were from Albany, a city of only 7,500 at the time, and Randel's father had served with De Witt's brother in the American Revolution. It was a time in American history when many young men went into surveying, at least for a short time, as there was a great need for them as the empty places – empty of whites, anyway – began to become settled.
When Randel finished his apprenticeship and became an assistant surveyor, he interpreted the field reports of other surveyors to draft maps based on them of land in the Adirondack Mountains and on the Oneida Reservation, mapped the Albany Turnpike between Albany and Schenectady and the Great Western Turnpike from Albany to Cooperstown, and surveyed property lots in Albany and in Central New York, particularly Oneida County
Despite his meager experience, through a recommendation by De Witt, one of three commissioners charged with developing a plan for the future layout of New York City's streets, and approval by Gouverneur Morris, one of the other commissioners and the unofficial president of the commission, Randel, at age 20, was hired to replace the commission's original chief surveyor, Charles Frederick Loss, who had proved to be incompetent.
Marguerite Holloway, Randel's biographer, divides his work in New York into three periods. The first, from 1808 to 1810, resulted in the 1811 publication of the Commissioners' Plan. Phase two ran from 1811 to 1817, during which he completed the necessary geodetic surveying and inscribed the grid into the land. The final phase was from around 1818 to 1821, when Randel and his first wife Matilda became high quality cartographers, makers of maps.