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.