BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, BELMONT COUNTY, OHIO

"History of the Upper Ohio Valley" Vol. II, 1890.

Presented by Linda Fluharty from hard copies provided
by Mary Staley & Phyllis Slater.


Pages 654-655.

JOHN MARSHALL
 
John Marshall, a leading farmer and stock-dealer of Belmont county, was
born in Monongahela county, W. Va., in 1826, the son of Hezekiah and Athe
(Neal) Marshall. The father was born in Maryland in 1760, of Irish parents.
During the war of the revolution his father's team was pressed into the
use of the army, and he accompanied it, and at the battle of Trenton,
he received a wound in the thigh, for which he afterward received a
pension. After the war he settled in West Virginia in the woods, and
was engaged in many skirmishes with the Indians. He and his father were
hardy frontiersmen and suffered the hardships and experienced the horrors
of Indian warfare. On one occasion the red men burned down their house
with all its centents and killed his brother-in-law and his sister,
leaving an arrow sticking in each breast of the latter. Undaunted,
Hezekiah Marshall continued to hold possession of his frontier post, and
though suffering many hair-breadth escapes survived the thrilling scenes
through which he passed. In this West Virginia home, John Marshall was
reared to the age of sixteen years, receiving, meanwhile, nine months of
schooling of the most primitive kind. In 1847 he was married to Margaret
Cowan, who came to this country at fifteen years of age. She was the
daughter of William Cowan, a shepherd, who died in Scotland. He and wife
then started out for themselvss with a capital of just $75, and he hired
out for $144 a year, boarding himself, at farm work, and was so engaged
for four years, and during this time, he and wife made their start in
life. The partner of his early struggles died June 20, 1866. By her he
had four children, two of whom are living: William and Elizabeth. His
second marriage was to Elizabeth Huth, who was born in 1842 at Wheeling,
daughter of Peter and Caroline (Flocher) Huth, who kept the William Tell
house at Wheeling thirteen years. Mr. Marshall now owns a farm of 100
acres, well improved.