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About the Foundation
John Marshall Gravesite Restored
Biography of Chief Justice John Marshall, 1755-1835
The John Marshall Foundation Teaching Award
Contacts and Links
The
John Marshall Foundation
209 West Franklin Street
Richmond, VA 23220
(804) 775-0861 (ph)
(804) 775-0862 (fax)
For additional information about The John Marshall Foundation
or to be added to the mailing list, please e-mail Lynn
Brackenridge, MS, CFRE, Executive Director, or write her at the address
given above.
The Virginia Bar Association
701 East Franklin Street, Suite 1120
Richmond, Virginia 23219
(804) 644-0041
FAX (804) 644-0052
E-MAIL thevba@vba.org
APVA Preservation Virginia
204 West Franklin Street
Richmond, Virginia 23220
(804) 648-1889
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About
the Foundation
The Virginia Bar Association has long been a strong supporter of the
John Marshall House in Richmond, and has been joined in this leadership
by APVA Preservation Virginia, private citizens and the Commonwealth of
Virginia.
Inasmuch as federal expenditures have been cut back, the responsibility
for protecting such national landmarks now rests in large part with the
private sector.
To meet the immediate needs of the House and to develop it as a permanent
memorial to the former Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
The John Marshall Foundation was established in 1987.
Many of the visitors to the Marshall House are grade-school and high school
students. To the extent of staff capabilities, tours and lectures are offered
and tailored to the requests of teachers. Special lectures are also conducted
for colleges and historical organizations and the House is used frequently
for small-group seminars sponsored by the legal profession.
The Marshall House, a major component of the Court End Tour in Richmond,
is becoming an attraction of national interest. With Capitol Square at its
center, Court End contains seven National Historic Landmarks and 12 buildings
on the National Register of Historic Places.
In order to restore and preserve adequately this national treasure as a
permanent memorial to Chief Justice Marshall and his contribution to the
law and to constitutional government, support by the legal community and
private citizens throughout Virginia and the nation is critical to the success
of this effort.
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In life, John Marshall (1755-1835) was a Revolutionary soldier, a statesman,
an author, a devoted family man, and a brilliant lawyer and jurist who became
known as the “Great Chief Justice” for his 34-year tenure as Chief
Justice of the United States, during which time he strengthened the nation’s
judicial system and established the Constitution as the supreme law of the
land.
In death, Marshall has rested for 163 years in a long-neglected tomb with
a weather-worn inscription in Richmond’s Shockoe Cemetery, surrounded
by a broken, rusted iron fence. Although some restorative work was done
in 1938 and again in 1952, Marshall’s grave has been in bad condition
for decades.
That is, until 1998, when The John Marshall Foundation spearheaded the rehabilitation
of the gravesite, with financial support from individuals, foundations and
businesses and a grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Restoration of the gravesite was done by Clinton Bush and Alan Rutherford
of Cathedral Stone Products, Inc., of Jessup, Maryland, who cleaned, restored
and leveled the Marshall tomb. Colonial Ironworks of Petersburg restored
the iron fence surrounding the site.
On September 24, 1998—the 243rd anniversary of John Marshall’s
birth—the rehabilitated gravesite was rededicated in a ceremony led
by Virginia’s Chief Justice Harry L. Carrico and First Lady Roxane
Gilmore, Bishop Peter James Lee of the Diocese of Virginia, other local
and state dignitaries, descendants of John Marshall, and supporters of The
John Marshall Foundation.
After a wreath-laying at the gravesite, participants and guests attended
a reception at The Library of Virginia, where library board member and former
VBA president F. Claiborne Johnston Jr. presented Mrs. Gilmore with the
library’s portrait of Chief Justice Marshall, which is being loaned
to Governor Gilmore at his request for exhibit in his State Capitol office.
The John Marshall Foundation (Allen C. Goolsby, president) is a joint endeavor
of The Virginia Bar Association and the Association for the Preservation
of Virginia Antiquities (APVA). Established in 1987 as a nonprofit organization,
the Foundation seeks to ensure the restoration and preservation of the residence
of Chief Justice John Marshall and the creation of a permanent memorial
to provide educational and public interest programs in the fields of law,
government, history and public affairs.
The John Marshall gravesite: Shockoe Hill Cemetery is located
just north of downtown Richmond (it is not in either Shockoe Bottom or Shockoe
Slip), on Hospital Street between Second and Fourth Streets. From Broad
Street, turn north on Second Street and continue to Hospital Street. Turn
right on Hospital Street and the cemetery is on your right. The Marshall
gravesite is within sight and a short walking distance from the cemetery
gate.
The John Marshall House: John Marshall’s Richmond home is located
at 818 E. Marshall Street in downtown Richmond’s “Court End”
and is open for tours. For details, call (804) 648-7998.
John Marshall, the man who was to be known as "The Great Chief Justice,"
was born near Germantown in Fauquier County, Virginia, on September 24,1755.
He was the oldest of the 15 children of Colonel Thomas Marshall and his
wife, Mary Randolph Keith. John's parents were well educated with inquisitive
minds. Lively intellectual discussions were typical in the Marshall family
and books were a constant source of pleasure.
Marshall began his military service as a lieutenant in the Fauquier County
militia. He held the same rank in both the Culpeper Minuteman Battalion
in 1775, and from 1776 to 1778 in the Virginia Continental Line. Marshall
was also appointed Deputy Judge Advocate and became a member of General
George Washington's command group. He emerged from the Revolutionary War
with a good reputation and a personal friendship with Washington. Marshall
studied law with George Wythe at the College of William and Mary, where
he learned political and legal principles which were to guide him in his
brilliant career. He returned to Fauquier in 1780 and was admitted to the
Virginia bar on August 28,1780. Shortly after, he was elected to Virginia's
House of Delegates, representing Fauquier in 1782 and 1784 and serving as
a member of the Council of State.
On January 3, 1783, John Marshall, 28, married Mary Willis "Polly"
Ambler, 16, of Yorktown, daughter of Rebecca Burwell and Jacquelin Ambler,
Treasurer of Virginia. Marshall and his bride moved to Richmond. The couple
began plans for their simple but elegant house and moved into their new
home (which today stands at 9th & Marshall Streets in Richmond and is
open for public tours) in 1790.
Marshall coupled a patriot's faith with a love of family and friends,
and he quickly earned respect from the legal community. He argued cases
for other attorneys in Virginia's highest courts and represented his former
commander, George Washington, and his cousin and future political adversary,
Thomas Jefferson. By 1787, Marshall was again elected to the House of Delegates.
His masterful oratory was largely responsible for gaining a favorable vote
to convene a special convention to consider ratification of "a Constitution"
which had been adopted in Philadelphia in September 1787. The tall, popular
Marshall was elected a Henrico County delegate to the June 1788 Virginia
Convention. It was Marshall who debated the formidable Patrick Henry, who
strongly opposed ratification of the Constitution. Marshall's arguments
for ratification carried, by a vote of 89 to 79.
During these years, Marshall served as Richmond City Common Hall and Hustings
Court Recorder (1785-88) and member of the House of Delegates for the City
of Richmond in 1789 and 1795-97. He also served as Virginia's acting Attorney
General from October 1794 to April 1795. He and a small group of his peers
dominated the state bar arguing before the state courts, the U.S. Circuit
Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. At this time, President Washington attempted
to appoint Marshall as U.S. Attorney General.
Sent by President John Adams to France in 1797, Marshall gained national
acclaim for his role in averting war with France, following the mission
known as the "XYZ Affair."
Unsuccessful in prior attempts to persuade Marshall to seek higher office,
Washington ultimately convinced him to run for Congress. On December 2,
1799, he took his seat in the House of Representatives, where his leadership
quickly propelled him to national attention. Soon afterward, President Adams
appointed him as Secretary of War, and the Senate confirmed the nomination
in May 1800. Adams then issued a proclamation announcing the appointment
of Marshall as Secretary of State, an office he held for six months.
On January 27, 1801, Marshall was unanimously confirmed as Chief Justice
of the United States Supreme Court. He held this office with honor until
his death in 1835. Marshall's brilliant judicial career is unsurpassed in
the history of the United States.
He took the Constitution, which Alexander Hamilton had spoken of as "a
frail and worthless fabric," molded it into a living, continuing Constitution
of fundamental law, and adapted it to "the various crises of human
affairs." He took a court which had been "an object of derision,
even contempt" and converted it into an equal partner with the executive
and legislative branches of government. There was no legal precedent for
the new Constitution, but Marshall was determined to make it work and to
see the new nation survive. He became known as the "Expounder of the
Constitution." Marshall established the Constitution as the supreme
law of the land, and the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of that law.
In 1831, at age 76, Marshall underwent an operation in Philadelphia for
gallstones. Despite his advanced age, the operation was successful and he
returned to Richmond and to his wife, who died on Christmas Day of that
same year. Marshall regularly visited her grave in Shockoe Cemetery and
on one such occasion became ill. On July 6, 1835, he died at age 80. John
Marshall had served his nation as the Great Chief Justice for 34 years.
John Marshall's legacy to his family was a love of books, a keen wit and
a sense of humility, duty, devotion and fidelity. His legacy to the nation
was a life of service and the Constitution. He was a man of exemplary
character, a man of law.
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