John C. F. Randolph

NJGenWeb ~ Morris County, New Jersey

John C. F. Randolph

Source: History Morris County New Jersey, Volume II, Lewis Publishing Co., 1914

John C. F. RANDOLPH was born in Trenton, New Jersey, December 20, 1846, and died in Netcong, February 3, 1911. He was the son of Judge Joseph F. RANDOLPH, of New Jersey, and the grandson of Dr. John COOPER, of Easton, Pennsylvania. His RANDOLPH forefathers had lived in New Jersey, for 200 years before his birth – all devout and upright men, living on their own land.

Mr. RANDOLPH graduated at Princeton College in 1866, and at the Columbia School of Mines in 1869. He afterwards studied in Gottingen, Tubingen and Vienna. His first employment was in 1871 in the service of the United States government in the structural cast-iron work of the lighthouse board. In 1873 and 1874 he was in the service of the Japanese government as professor of metallurgy in the university of Tokyo. In 1884 he was in the service of the Chinese government, engaged in the examination of gold lands on the Yangtse river, and in 1888 in the service of the Republic of Colombia in South America, as commissioner of mines in the Tolima district. At other times he was engaged for English and American bankers and syndicates in extensive examinations in Colorado, Montana, California, Arizona, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Borneo, China, and India. It was his boast that he had saved fortunes rather than won them; that he has told the exact truth to clients and had never negotiated sales. He had a consulting office in New York for about thirty-five years; was a member of the University Club and the Down Town Association in New York, and of the Morristown Club and of the South Street Presbyterian Church. He was a man of wide acquaintance in many lands, and knew their great songs and music and pictures and scenes and customs, as well as their mines. He lived in Morristown for about twenty years. He never married.

Transcribed by John Cresseveur (1949-2003)