FLAMES ENTIRELY DESTROY OLD RANDALL HOMESTEAD SATURDAY
NIGHT
from the Middle Island Mail
February 5,1936
Mrs. Randall and Son and Their Guests Escape But Are
Unable To Save Many Of Their Belongings
The century old Gilbert 0. Randall home, located at the
intersection of the Whiskey road and Ridge road at,
Middle Island, was burned to the ground early Saturday
evening by a fire that is believed to have been started
by an overheated hot air furnace. So rapidly did the
flames spread through the old homestead that only four
pieces of furniture were saved.
At the time Mrs.Randall, who
is 85 years old, and her son, Orville, who is 62, were
entertaining Mr. and Mrs. John Baxter, relatives from
Vermont. The fire was first discovered in the floor,
almost directly over the furnace, and an effort was made
to check it but without success, for it was already
beginning to spread out.
All four occupants of the
home escaped safety into the bitter cold but. were able
to salvage but few of their belongings. Neighbors came to
their aid but there was little that could be done, for a
brisk wind soon carried the flames to every part of the
oId two-story frame structure in which Mrs. Randall had
lived for almost 70 years. She took up her residence in
the home immediately after her marriage.
The Randall property is
located about a mile and a half north of the Middle
Country road, and north of the Ridge section of Middle
Island. It is far removed from any fire department and
there was little that fire fighting apparatus could have
accomplished, for chemicals would have proven wholly
ineffective, it is said, in controlling the blaze.
Mrs. Randall and the Baxters
went to the house of Mrs. Randall's sister in Shoreham
after the fire had burned itself out and the son spent
the night with neighbors. Meanwhile the Bax-ters made
preparation to return to their home in Vermont.
Mr. Randall died about a year ago. He and his wife were
the oldest members of the Randall family that gathered at
the home of Ernest E. Randall at the Ridge on September
9, 1933, at which time the Stephen Randall association of
Long Island was formed.
The Randall family is one of
the oldest in the middle part of Brookhaven town and at
one time it held a vast domain that stretched from the
Middle Country road to Long Island sound and several
miles east and west, bordering the Tangier tract, which
extended to the south.