Humphrey Marshall

Background

Humphrey Marshall was the son of John and Mary (Quisenberry) Marshall. He was born in 1760 in Fauquier County, Virginia. His father was a younger son in humble circumstances but was a member of a distinguished family. There is a tradition that the boy was sent to be educated at the home of his uncle, Thomas Marshall, and that there in company with his first cousins he was instructed by members of the family and by their tutors. Among these cousins were John, Louis, and James Markham Marshall and Mary (christened Anna Maria).

Education

Little is known of Marshall's early years, but one tradition holds that he had no formal education during his childhood and that his cousin Mary (later, his wife) taught him to read. Then he studied law and was admitted to the bar.

Career

In 1778 Humphrey Marshall enlisted in the Virginia forces, and in 1781 he was captain-lieutenant of the Virginia artillery. In 1782 he settled in Kentucky and became deputy surveyor of Fayette County in the office of his uncle Thomas Marshall. In December of that year he received from Virginia a warrant for 4, 000 acres of land for his Revolutionary services. He studied law and attained a position of eminence as an attorney. He was elected a delegate from Fayette County to the Danville convention of 1787, where he came into collision with Wilkinson. The next year as a delegate to the Virginia convention he voted for ratification of the federal Constitution. In 1789 he was a delegate to the Danville convention that was attempting to advance Kentucky to statehood. Having moved to Woodford County he became surveyor there in 1790, and in 1793 and 1794 he was elected to the Kentucky legislature. Suspecting a plot he opposed the movement of George Rogers Clark to attack the Spaniards at New Orleans, under the direction of Genet, and he accused Governor Isaac Shelby of complicity. Jeffersonian Republicanism was so weakened by these Spanish and French schemes that the Kentucky legislature in 1795 elected Marshall to the United States Senate over John Breckinridge, 1760-1806. By voting for the Jay Treaty in the Senate Marshall brought down upon himself in Kentucky hostility that did not stop short of mob violence. He was dragged to the Kentucky River and was only by a trick prevented from being ducked. He was actually stoned out of Frankfort. In 1806 he suspected Aaron Burr's motives and was instrumental in exposing him. At this time John Wood and Joseph M. Street set up their Western World and with Marshall's aid began to pry into the dealings of some prominent Kentuckians with Spain. Writing over the signature of "Observer" Marshall soon drove from the bench of the highest court in the state Benjamin Sebastian, and he began an onset upon Harry Innes that ran its course through lawsuits instituted by both parties and finally ended by both signing an agreement to cease attacking each other. Marshall was elected to the lower house of the legislature in 1807, 1808, and 1809. Already in conflict with Henry Clay in the Burr exposure, Marshall, in 1809, insulted him over a resolution that Clay had introduced calling for the wearing of homespun, and at Louisville the two crossed the Ohio into Indiana to fight a duel, in which both were slightly wounded. He soon changed the name to the Harbinger and sold it in 1825. In his old age becoming paralyzed, he moved back to Lexington to live with his son Thomas Alexander Marshall and died there.

Achievements

Marshall was one of the greatest landholders in Kentucky and one of its wealthiest citizens, according to tradition measuring his money by the peck. Marshall has been remembered by subsequent generations largely for The History of Kentucky, which was first published in 1812 in one volume, and revised and republished in 1824 in two. It was the first formal history of the state. In it he vindicated himself and made havoc of his enemies. Notwithstanding the agreement he had signed, his second edition repeated the earlier attacks on Innes, who had died in 1816. He also wrote a large number of communications to the newspapers of Kentucky and now and then wrote verse. In 1810 he set up the only Federalist newspaper in the state, the American Republic, and as an act of defiance to his enemies, flew a rattlesnake from its masthead.

Personality

Like most of the Marshalls he became a Federalist and doggedly remained so, in spirit, to the end of his days. In Kentucky, where Jeffersonians greatly predominated, such perversity was unforgivable. An additional provocation to his neighbors was his scorn for any revealed religion. He had an extreme amount of candor and very little tact. He did not believe in the rule of the masses and often publicly stated his contempt for them. He had a blistering tongue and a cutting pen, and though he spent all of his public life in the midst of bitter political warfare and personal contentions, he claimed never to have provoked them. He first attracted public attention, when he began in 1786 to oppose the schemes of James Wilkinson to separate Kentucky from Virginia.

Connections

He was married his cousin Mary on September 18, 1784. He had a daughter and two sons, Thomas Alexander, and John Jay, who was the father of Humphrey Marshall, 1812-1872.

Father:: John Marshall
Mother:: Mary Jane Quisenberry Marshall
Brother:: Thomas Marshall
Brother:: Enoch Marshall
Grandson:: Humphrey Marshall
Sister:: Elizabeth Marshall January
Grandfather:: Humphrey Quisenberry
Wife:: Mary Ann Marshall Marshall
Son:: John Jay
Son:: Thomas Alexander Marshall

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