Background
John Marsh was the eldest of the seven children of John and Mary (Brown) Marsh and a descendant of John Marsh who emigrated from England to Salem, Massachussets, about 1633. Born and reared in South Danvers, Massachussets.
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John Marsh was the eldest of the seven children of John and Mary (Brown) Marsh and a descendant of John Marsh who emigrated from England to Salem, Massachussets, about 1633. Born and reared in South Danvers, Massachussets.
Marsh attended Franklin Academy in North Andover, Lancaster Academy, and was graduated from the Phillips Academy at Andover in 1819. Entering Harvard College he graduated with the class of 1823. He was appointed tutor to officers' children at Fort St. Anthony, now St. Paul, and arrived at this frontier post in October 1823. During his two years' service he studied medicine under Dr. Edward Purcell, the fort surgeon, and had almost completed the course mapped out, when his preceptor died. He mingled freely with the neighboring Indians and in 1824 and 1825 served as sub-agent to the Sioux at St. Peter.
In 1826, with the help of Lewis Cass, then governor of Michigan Territory, Marsh was appointed sub-agent for Indian affairs at Prairie du Chien, and he served in that post and also as justice of the peace of Crawford County until the death of Marguerite. During these years he worked on a Sioux dictionary and wrote a brief grammar of the Sioux language, which were published in Caleb Atwater's Remarks Made on a Tour to Prairie du Chien. His friendship with the Sioux indirectly led to the outbreak of the Black Hawk War of 1832, in which he organized and led a band of Sioux. Dispirited and melancholy over the death of Marguerite, he resigned as justice at the end of the war and had disposed of his fur-trade when he learned of the issuance of a warrant to arrest him on the charge of unlawfully selling arms and ammunition to the Indians. He fled down the Mississippi to St. Louis, located at Independence, Mo. , and for two years was engaged in general merchandising. In 1835 he lost all his property and, still fearing arrest, departed secretly for Santa Fé, where he arrived only after escaping death at the hands of Indian captors. In February 1836 he reached Los Angeles, where he soon received permission to practise as a physician, but in less than a year he had sold his practice and started north in search of a cattle range.
John Marsh was the first Harvard graduate and the first to practice medicine there. He knew Hebrew, Latin and Greek, and was the first to compile a dictionary of the Sioux language. He became one of the wealthiest ranchers in California, and was one of the most influential men in the establishment of California statehood.
In order to obtain a Mexican land title, he was baptized a Roman Catholic and became a naturalized Mexican citizen.
Impressed by the results of American infiltration into Texas, he became convinced that the story of Texas might be repeated in California and in Oregon. He wrote letters to friends in Missouri and to his former patron Senator Cass, urging immigration to California and begging for official encouragement of it. Some of his letters were published in newspapers and seem to have been influential in starting the first American migration to California just before the discovery of gold.
John Marsh bought a rancho ten miles wide and twelve miles long in the San Joaquin Valley, near the site of the present city of Antioch. He resumed the practice of medicine and for many years was the only physician in the San Joaquin Valley. In return for his services he exacted heavy fees, usually in cattle, and soon became the owner of large herds. The discovery of gold drew him into the mines for a time and added greatly to his rapidly accumulating fortune. In person, he was tall, heavy, athletic, and commanding. He was fond of books and a linguist of no mean ability. As a business man he was adroit, exacting, and not over-scrupulous. Dissatisfied with their wages, three of his vaqueros waylaid, robbed, and murdered him not far from Martinez, California.
Quotes from others about the person
"Many of Marsh's deeds were greater than the man himself. Many fell far short. Sometimes he destroyed. Mostly he builded. He was strong. He was weak. He was great. He was small. He loved. He hated. But always he was human. On every occasion but one he was master of circumstances. Even then, in defeat, he was heroic. Whatever John Marsh went there was romance and adventure. His life reads like a volume of fiction. The name of Marsh should be a household word. Yet Fate, for some inscrutable reason, denied him a place among the immortals. "
At the Sioux at St. Peter he fell in love with Marguerite Decouteaux, daughter of a French father and a Sioux mother. This romance profoundly influenced his life for it was, perhaps, the principal reason why he stayed in the wilderness instead of returning to the East. For seven years the couple lived together and raised an only son, who survived both parents. In June 1851 he married Abigail Smith Tuck of Chelmsford, Massachussets. She died in a few years, leaving him a daughter, who, with her half-brother, inherited the large estate.
