A 2007 UPDATE: OUR MYSTERY ANCESTOR JOHN MARSHALL

(about 1761-1806)

§

Kelly Marshall

In late June 2007, I had to make a work-related drive to Wheeling, West Virginia. I’d been sitting for several years on a clue to the late 1820s whereabouts of Andrew Marshall (1800-1832), first son of John Marshall and Catharina Truby Rohrer. A document posted online by the Library of Congress refers to an Andrew Marshall as postmaster of St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio. St. Clairsville is about eight miles from Wheeling, where Marshall and his family appeared in the 1830 census. From Wheeling, he left in the winter of 1832 for his ill-fated business trip down the Ohio River—a trip from which he never returned. He was presumed drowned. That a Marshall would be appointed postmaster by the new Andrew Jackson administration makes sense: the Robinsons and the Marshalls were Jacksonian Democrats, and both his brother Samuel Marshall and his brother-in-law Elisha Robinson benefited from the patronage of the Jackson administration.

I had no luck with the postmaster angle. But the librarian in the public library’s genealogy and local history room gave me a printed booklet which indexed the probate files of Belmont County. As I was scanning the list for the name Andrew Marshall, I saw an 1807 file which referenced Andrew, Samuel and John Marshall. It took me only a moment to realize that these were the three orphaned sons of our Mystery Ancestor, John Marshall, and his wife Catharina.

Since 1976, we’ve been against the proverbial “brick wall”—a term used by family history researchers to describe that one ancestor about whom you can find nothing more. Our John Marshall has been that ancestor. He is in Greensburg, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania at least by 1799, when he and his new wife conceived their first child, the above-noted Andrew. Our cousin Jane Cooper, a California attorney and careful genealogist, researched every Marshall in Westmoreland County prior to 1799, and ruled them out as “our” John Marshall.

Multiple Marshall/Robinson family lines recalled and repeated the tradition that he was a cousin of John Marshall, the Chief Justice of the United States. In 1914, his great-grandson, Samuel Marshall Turk, reported that John Marshall was a native of northern Ireland. His own son John reported on the 1870 Census that his father was of foreign birth. And we’ve had absolutely no clue at all—none whatsoever—of any Marshall relative for this puzzling ancestor.

But on the lucky day I drove to St. Clairsville, Ohio, I found the fragile piece of paper (see the transcription below) which identifies four men as guarantors of a bond of $3000 for the orphaned Marshall boys—sons of the late John Marshall.

And one of those men is Joseph Marshall.

Joseph Marshall is buried in the St. Clairsville Cemetery, and recorded dates for his stone (which I cannot locate) are 1767-1835. He was our John Marshall’s younger brother, wasn’t he? Or at the least, a close-enough Marshall relative to take responsibility for these Marshall orphans. And the other men—were some of them uncles of the boys? Married to sisters of John Marshall?

I already am on this fresh trail of John Marshall’s family and ancestors. Now the real fun begins.

The Belmont County Courthouse in

St. Clairsville, Ohio,

where the

1807 Guardianship Bond for the

Orphaned Marshall Boys Awaited Discovery

Guardianship Bond for Andrew, Samuel and John Marshall

12 May 1807

St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio

[Cover] Guardianship Bond

John Patterson &

Joseph Marshall

[Text]

Know all men by these Presents that we John Patterson

Joseph Marshall, Alexander Boggs and Moses Morehead are

held and firmly bound unto the Honorable Calvin Pease Esqr.

President ___ ___ Associates Judges of the Court of Common Pleas

for the time being and to their Successors in office in the penal

Sum of three thousand Dollars (1) to the payment of which well

and truly to be made we bind ourselves our heirs Executors

and administrators jointly and severally firmly by these

presents Sealed with our seals and created this twelfth day

of May – in the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hun-

dred and seven.

The Condition of the Above Obligation is such that,

Whereas the above bounden John Patterson and Joseph Marshall

have been appointed by the said Court Guardians to Andrew

Marshall, Samuel Marshall and John Marshall, Minor Children and

heirs of John Marshall Deceased.  Now if the said John Patterson

and Joseph Marshall shall and do well and faithfully

discharge their trust according to the law and shall render

an accurate statement of their transactions with a just

account of the profits arising from the estate of the said

heirs and shall deliver up the same to the court at such

time or times as the said court may require, then the

above obligation to be void otherwise to remain in full

force and virtue in Law.

[signatures]

Signed Sealed and delivered John Patterson

in the presence of Joseph Marshall

Alexander Boggs

[signatures] Moses Morehead

James Cloyd

Sterling Johnston

ENDNOTE

(1) Using the Consumer Price Index for 2005, that's $52,312.50.