John Stephen Rando Jr.’s ancestry stretches back into many corners of the world, including Italy and Scotland. Nowhere is his family’s story more intriguing, however, than in its success in the United States, where they were part of stunning and significant historical events. His eighth great-grandfather, Francis Cooke, arrived on Mayflower in 1620 and became a respected leader in his community. Cooke’s family was one of the first to prosper in their new home. Three family members witnessed America’s dramatic bid for independence from Great Britain. His fourth great-grandfather, James Brown of Machias, Maine, fought to protect his town, but after the Revolutionary War was over, he joined his children in pledging allegiance to Great Britain by petitioning for land in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. In contrast, John Hillyer and Reuben Dow were stalwarts in their convictions—albeit from opposing camps. John Hillyer was almost certainly one of Staten Island’s many staunch Loyalists, while Reuben Dow was a leader at Bunker Hill, one of the first major battles in the effort to gain American self-government.
During the American Revolution, John’s third cousin four times removed, Stephen Taber, was born in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. As he and the fledgling United States took their first steps together, Stephen became part of the new economy that no longer relied on the provision of English-designed goods. While the New Bedford whaling industry was booming around him, Stephen learned the intricate craft of clockmaking and contributed to the development of a uniquely American style of clock. Perhaps the most colorful of John’s relatives was his distant cousin Horace Austin Warner Tabor. “HAW” Tabor’s life story—a dramatic rags-to-riches-to-rags saga—has often been retold, and his name is well-known in the cities of Leadville and Denver, Colorado. Most accounts of his life and times omit, however, his early years as an immigrant to New England and a Kansas pioneer. These new details offer a way to see the larger-than-life HAW Tabor in a perhaps less mythic light.
Together, the stories of John Rando’s notable ancestors and cousins constitute a glimpse into the lives of those who influenced key points in America’s formation: its European beginnings on New England soil; its fight for independence and issues of loyalty that accompanied it; its economic dissolution from Great Britain; and the constant hunger of its people for growth and expansion.
By Members of the American Ancestors Research Services Team and American Ancestors Senior Genealogist Rhonda R. McClure
8-1/4 x 10-1/4 hardcover, 326 pages
Published by American Ancestors in July 2026
