James Fowle Baldwin Marshall was born on August 8, 1818 in Charlestown, Massachussets, son of Thomas, a prosperous banker, and Sophia (Kendal) Marshall. One grandfather, Christopher Marshall, had fought at Bunker Hill in a regiment commanded by his brother, while the other, Samuel Kendal, had been a noted preacher.
James was sent to Harvard College in 1834, but during his sophomore year trouble with his eyes a lifelong weakness forced him to drop out.
In 1838 he went to the Hawaiian Islands and engaged in business at Honolulu. When Lord George Paulet, commander of a British frigate, in February 1843 used the specious claims of an ambitious consul as grounds for provisional annexation of the islands, young Marshall was secretly appointed an envoy to put the Hawaiian case before the British government and the world. His instructions and commission as minister plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James's were made out on a coffin for a table in the royal tomb at Honolulu, where the native government was functioning in hiding, and signed by King Kamehameha III, who had taken refuge in mountain fastnesses. The youth of twenty-four set out ostensibly as agent of the American firm from which Paulet had chartered a vessel the only one permitted to sail to carry his dispatches to England. Leaving Honolulu on March 24, he traveled with the unsuspecting British messenger to San Blas and thence across Mexico to Vera Cruz, where the two parted company. Thence Marshall sailed to New Orleans, and on his journey from that place to Boston broadcast the news from Hawaii. In the interests of his mission he interviewed Daniel Webster, then secretary of state, who said: "We will await the result of your mission. If England does not then disavow the acts of Lord George Paulet and restore the group, we'll make a fuss. " Hurrying to London, Marshall joined other Hawaiian envoys, with whose help he succeeded during the month of July in persuading Lord Aberdeen, the foreign secretary, to review the whole subject. An admission was finally obtained that the situation had been misrepresented to the British government and that justice would be done. Satisfied with this answer, which led eventually to joint recognition of Hawaiian independence by England and France in November, he sailed for America on August 20 and after his marriage he set out immediately for Honolulu. Reaching there in April 1844, he learned that at the very time when he was negotiating in London, Admiral Thomas, Paulet's superior officer, had restored the sovereignty of the islands to the native king. The incident has recently been explained as a move to prevent French occupation. Marshall now returned to business and for a number of years was a partner in one of the largest trading firms of Honolulu.
Shortly before 1860 he returned to Boston with a considerable fortune, and during the Civil War served as paymaster general of the Massachusetts troops and as agent of the state Sanitary Commission in charge of a hospital train. After the war he joined Gen. Samuel C. Armstrong at Hampton Institute (Va. ), an industrial school for negroes and Indians, where from 1870 to 1884 he was resident trustee, assistant principal, treasurer, and instructor in bookkeeping. To his business reputation and able management of its finances the school owed much of its early growth in public confidence. Forced by failing eyesight to retire, he spent the last years of his life on his estate at Weston, Massachussets, where he died, only two days before the death of his second wife.
Deeply interested in public affairs, Marshall was elected to the Hawaiian legislature, and there advocated the protection of native rights and the substitution of land-tenure in fee simple for the ancient feudal system. He was active also in encouraging agricultural improvements and temperance legislation.
Marshall married Eunice S. Hooper in Charlestown, November 9, 1843. On October 4, 1848 he married Martha A. T. Johnson, daughter of John Johnson of Charlestown, Massachussets.
18 January 1781 - 12 September 1863
15 July 1786 - 17 September 1882
18 March 1821 - 13 October 1872
7 June 1841 - 25 June 1844
16 July 1830 - 24 September 1842
16 July 1830 - 16 November 1900
29 November 1824 - 8 May 1891
3 May 1818 - 29 July 1846
29 August 1844 - 12 July 1845
