Biography Oliver S. Marshall (Hancock County, WV) ********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ********************************************************************** Submitted by Valerie Forren Crook The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 362-363 OLIVER S. MARSHALL. Descended from one of the oldest families in the Northern Panhandle, Oliver S. Marshall has always made his home in that section, and as a lawyer and legislator his reputation has become state wide; Hia home is at New Cumberland, and his law offices in the industrial town of Weirton. He was born near Fairview, the old county seat of Han- cock County, now called Pughtown, September 24, 1850. He is a great-grandson of the pioneer Aaron Marshall, who came from east of the mountains, from somewhere in Vir- ginia, and is thought to have been a solddier of Braddock and Washington in the famous campaign of 1755. About 1760 he located on Chartiers Creek in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and about 1780 came to what is now Han- cock County, West Virginia. His land was part of the Johnson survey, granted in 1775, when Patrick Henry was governor of Virginia. The grant was for 7,000 acres, but when it was surveyed it measured 8,100 acres. Of this 205 acres was assigned to Aaron Marshall at ten shillings an acre, payable in whiskey at the rate of five shillings a gal- lon, flour and other forms of currency of that day. Aaron Marshall had the fourth house on that tract. Some of the land is still owned by Oliver S. Marshall, and the original record of the title is at Louisville, Kentucky. The town of Newell stands on part of the original grant. In his minutes George Washington mentions the falls where this tract borders the Ohio River, but the land of Aaron Mar- shall is some five miles from that stream. Aaron Marshall continued to live here until his death in advanced years in 1826. He was a Baptist and fre- quently preached on Kings Creek, where he was buried. His son, John Marshall, was born in 1782 and died in 1859, spending his entire life in Hancock County. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church. James G. Marshall, father of Senator Marshall, was born at old Fairview, Hancock County, November 21, 1826, and died October 6, 1902. He left the farm, did considerable surveying, became an attorney and for twenty-four years was prosecuting attorney of Hancock County. He was buried in the old Presbyterian churchyard at Fairview. His wife was Lavina Miller, daughter of John Miller and granddaughter of David Miller. David Miller settled on Tomlinson's Run, where he owned 400 acres, secured from Dorsey Pentecost, one of the two last judges who held court at Pittsburgh under the authority of the British crown. David had the first house in Gas Valley, and died in 1835, in his ninety-ninth year. His son John spent his life as a farmer at the old place, and his daughter Lavina was born there. She died when about sixty years old, and her three children are: Oliver S.; E. D. Marshall, an attorney at Santa Clara, California; and Ila, of New Cum- berland, widow of Dr. J. W. Walton. Oliver S. Marshall graduated from the West Liberty Normal School in 1874 as valedictorian, and is the last survivor of that class. He continued his education in Bethany College, where he graduated in 1878, and in 1881 began a long term of service as one of the trustees of that famous institution. One of his classmates at Bethany was the late Judge Joseph R. Lamar of Georgia, for many years a justice of the United States Supreme Court. Judge Lamar married a Miss Pendleton, daughter of a former president of Bethany College. Mr. Marshall was for a time principal of the Now Cumberland schools, began the study of law while serving as county clerk, and was admitted to the bar and began his long and successful service as a lawyer in 1890. He is a member of the Christian Church and an active republican, having been a delegate to the national con- vention of that party in 1892. He was first chosen to represent the First District in the West Virginia Senate in 1896, served in the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Legislatures of 1897-99, and was elected president of the Senate in 1899. Ho was again elected and was a member of the Senate in the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Legislatures, 1905-07-08, and rounded out twelve years in that body by representing the same district in 1913-15. On September 8, 1880, Senator Marshall married Miss Elizabeth Tarr, a native of Wellsburg and daughter of Cnmpbell and Nancy (Hammond) Tarr. Her father with- drew from the Richmond convention when Virginia passed the ordinance of secession, and subsequently became a leader in the movement for the creation of West Virginia, and became treasurer of the provisional government and the first treasurer of the new state. Senator Marshall had two children, John and Olive, the latter deceased. John grad- uated at Yalc and West Virginia University, and has earned distinction in the law, business and public affairs at Parkersburg.