Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/122

 V-JUDGES OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

Blair, John (q. v.).

Marshall, John, was born in Germantown, Fauquier county, Virginia, September 24, 1755, son of Colonel Thomas (q. v.) and Mary Isham (Keithj Marshall, the eldest of fifteen children. He received his early in- structions from Mr. James Thompson, a private tutor, and attended the classical academy of the Messrs. Campbell, in West- moreland county, Virginia. He studied law, but at the outbreak of the revolutionary war he joined a company of volunteers and, as lieutenant, took part in the action at v^reat Bridge, in Norfolk county. His com- pany was subsequently reorganized* and he- me a part of the Eleventh Regiment of \ irginia troops, which was ordered to join Washington's army in Xew Jersey. He was promoted captain of a company in May, ^117 '* ^vas engaged in the battles of Mon- mouth. Brandywine and Germantown, and accompanied Washington to Valley Forge, December 19, 1777. In 1779 he was present at the capture of Stony Point by General Anthony Wayne and subsequently covered the retreat of Major Lee after his attack on the enemy's post at Paulus' Hook, August I9« 1779- He was ordered to return to Vir- ginia to take charge of the militia which was then being raised by the state, and he repaired to Williamsburg, Virginia. While waiting for the troops he attended, for a few months in 1780, a course of law lectures by Chancellor Wythe, of the College of Wil- liam and Mar\% and the same year was ad- mitted to the bar at Williamsburg. Despair-

ing of the organization of state militia, he joined the small force under Baron Steuben for the defence of the state. In 1781 he re- signed his commission and entered upon the practice of law in Fauquier county. He early attained prominence at the bar ; was a delegate to the Virginia house of delegates in 1782; removed his law office to Richmond, Virginia; was elected a member of the state executive council and was commissioned a general in the newly organized state militia. He continued to represent Fauquier county in the legislature till 1787, and then repre- sented Henrico county. He was engaged ill the celebrated case of Ware vs. Hilton, involving the British debt question, tried in the Circuit Court of the United States at Richmond before Chief Justice John Jay, the attorneys for the American debtors being Patrick Henry, Alexander Campbell, James Irvine and John Marshall. He was married. January 3, 1783, to Mary Willis, daughter ot Jacqueline and Rebecca L. (Burwell) Amber. He became a Federalist, and was a member of the constitutional convention of Virginia, which met at Richmond. June 2, 1788, where he favored the adoption of the Federal constitution. He declined the cabi- net position of attorney-general, and also a foreign mission tendered him by President Washington; was again a delegate to the house of burgesses, 1788-91, and practiced law at Richmond, 1791-97. Upon the with- drawal of James Monroe as resident minister to France, and the appointment of Charles C. Pinckney as his successor, the French gov-

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