Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Randall, Hon Sylvester W 
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Author: Past and Present of Will County, IL; 1907

Hon. Sylvester W. Randall, who for years was a prominent lawyer of the Joliet 
bar and represented his district in the state legislature, was born in Hoosick 
Falls, New York, March 23, 1808. His parents were Benjamin and Polly (Lathrop) 
Randall, natives of New England, whence they removed to the Empire state in 
1806, the father there following the occupation of farming. When nine years of 
age Sylvester W. Randall accompanied his parents on their removal to Fredonia, 
New York, where he attended the academy to the age of sixteen years. He then 
put aside his text books and began learning the lessons that come in the 
school of experience. He was first apprenticed to the printers trade, with 
which he was closely connected until twenty years of age. He then removed to 
Franklin county, Pennsylvania, and ambitious to enter professional life took 
up the study of law under George Galbraith, while later he was a student in 
the office of Chief Justice Thompson. He taught school and followed the 
printers trade at intervals in order to make money enough to defray his 
expenses while preparing for the bar, and in 1834 he was admitted and entered 
upon active practice at Erie, Pennsylvania. He was also associate editor of 
the Erie Observer in 1873. Following his removal to Joliet, he was elected 
judge of the Circuit court and was also chosen to represent his district in 
the state legislature, where he served on the committee on banks and 
corporations, acting in that capacity when the charter of the Illinois Central 
Railroad, the Rock Island, and the Chicago & Alton Railroads were passed upon. 
He was recognized as one of the ablest chancery lawyers of the state and had 
broad and intimate knowledge of the principles of jurisprudence in all of its 
departments. In civil cases he presented his cause with clearness and force 
and in criminal cases was strong in argument and logical in his deductions. 
During his practice of thirty years no client of his was ever sent to the 
penitentiary or to the gallows. He was a fluent speaker, of marked oratorical 
power, and in addition to his ready gift of language he had keen perceptive 
power and accurately applied the principles of law to the points in 
litigation. He was chosen a state elector in 1860 on the Douglas ticket and 
was a stalwart champion of democratic principles. Mr. Randall was married 
three times. In 1853 he wedded Miss Perry of Pennsylvania, who died in 1857. 
His second wife was Miss Stillman of Erie, Pennsylvania, who passed away in 
1868. On the 5th of December, 1872, he married Miss Martha D. Risley of Will 
county, who was born in New Hartford, New York, and came to Illinois with her 
father, George Risley, in 1860. She is still living. Mr. Randall, however, 
passed away in 1889. He left the impress of his individuality upon the court 
records of Will county, where he was widely recognized as a prominent and able 
lawyer. He put the talents with which nature endowed him to the best possible 
use and left behind him an honored name and the record of a life of capable 
service for his fellowmen. 

Additional Comments:
PAST AND PRESENT OF WILL COUNTY, ILLINOIS By W. W. Stevens President of the 
Will County Pioneers Association; Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing 
Company, 1907

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