John Randel Jr.

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.

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.

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.

[5] 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.

[11] Randel began work in June 1808, and was ordered to conduct a detailed survey of Manhattan island to help produce the plan of New York City's future streets.

He needed, asked for, and received an extension from the Common Council to complete the task, and even then he did not quite make the deadline, delivering the last maps in September 1820, about four months late.

Historian Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, in his The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 called them "the most complete and valuable topographical record of the period that exists.

Randel had begun to prepare a map to go to the engraver, using his original papers, when he found out that the council had given William Bridges, one of the handful of city-recognized surveyors, the right to do so.

[15] The conflict between the two men did not come to a head until three years later, in 1814, when Randel starting advertising his own version of the Commissioners' Plan map, which he said was "more correct" then the previously published one – he did not mention Bridges by name – not only because of the errors he claimed had crept into the map when Bridges copied it, but because he, Randel, "has since completed the measurements and fixed monuments by contract with the [Common Council], [therefore] he alone is possessed of all the materials for this valuable work."

He published a letter from Gouverneur Morris, who called Randel's map "an excellent work ... indispensable to those who wish to make themselves acquainted with the Topography of that interesting space which is comprizes [sic].

In any case, Bridges himself died shortly after that, and Randel did not publish his map or had it engraved, due to national security concerns connected with the War of 1812.

He cleared the project with his mentor, Simeon De Witt, whose map of New York state was highly praised, and engaged noted engraver Peter Maverick.

While beautiful and innovative, and praised at the time for its accuracy and arrangement, the map was not a financial success, nor was the Common Council satisfied at the small scale at which Manhattan was shown.

He lost the case, but it did not cure him of the inclination to use the courts when he felt slighted or taken advantage of: it was the first in a long line of lawsuits that Randel would file over the rest of his life.

Randel turned down this offer, perhaps expecting that he would be given the job of chief engineer on the Delaware & Raritan, but political considerations held up that project, which was not built until 1830–34.

Whether he was the author is not known, but a series of letters from "A Friend of the Canal" were published in a local newspaper, complaining that the process by which the route had been determined was closed: in modern terms, it was not "transparent".

Work on the canal had actually started in 1804, supervised by Benjamin H. Latrobe, but stopped a year later due to lack of funds, politics, and topographical and labor problems.

[37] Randel was hired as an engineer – his responsibility would be the eastern half of the canal, which included the "deep cut" and the 80-foot ridge, as well as bogs and marshland – and signed his contract on March 26.

Carey also pointed out that the entire crew, including Randel, had courted disease and bad health by working throughout the winter in a frozen marsh, as demanded by the company, and that there was a better case for neglect of duty against Wright, who had spent most of the spring and summer surveying other canals.

[43][45][46] Randel's suit against the company was heard in Delaware, as one of the two states which would charge tolls for the canal, in 1833, delays having occurred due to jurisdictional problems.

[48][49] At this point, the canal company appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States not only the most recent ruling regarding Randel's attachments, but also the original judgment of award.

[52] The final chapter in the long saga occurred when Randel accused William Linn Brown, his longtime loyal associate and the man charged with receiving the attached tolls from the canal, of taking $1000 from him, as well as power-of-attorney documents.

There would be four lines, two uptown and two downtown, one a local and one an express each way, in a closed loop from Bowling Green to Union Square, a distance of about 3 miles (4.8 km) in each direction.

He got the Mechanics Institute to examine his proposal and make their evaluation public, got clearance from the chief engineer of the fire department, and altered the model slightly and re-presented it to the Board of Aldermen.

[64] But some of the legal actions seem to have been simply frivolous, such as when Randel lost a piece of jewelry and had all the workers on the estate looking for it, until someone showed up claiming to have found the pin by the river.

[31] Whatever the reason – lack of work, non-payment of fees that were owed him, or money spent on impractical schemes – Randel was clearly in financial trouble, seeking to sell off many of his assets by the early 1850s.

In 1858, some of their possessions were seized by Cecil County to pay off longstanding debts owed to a neighbor; several months later, their son, John M Randel, died at the age of 27, possibly from yellow fever.

The Board seemed interested, and at first recommended hiring Randel, but eventually, even with the backing of mayor Charles Godfrey Gunther, the petition failed to be approved.

His grave has not been located, but it is said that he was buried in the First Presbyterian Church of Orange where he married his first wife, Mathilda; Letitia went to live with Randel's nephew in New Jersey.