William Rainey Marshall was the son of Joseph and Abigail Black (Shaw) Marshall and the descendant of Joseph Marshall who emigrated from the north of Ireland about 1746 and settled near Carlisle, Pa. He was born on October 17, 1825 in Boone County, Mo. , and spent his boyhood in Quincy, Ill. For several years after 1841 he and his brother worked in lead mines of Illinois and Wisconsin, and during this time he obtained a practical knowledge of surveying.
While living at St. Croix Falls in 1847 he went to the Falls of St. Anthony, where he staked out a claim, which he could not, however, make legal until 1849. In 1848 he was elected to the Wisconsin legislature but was disqualified because his residence was west of the St. Croix River. He was one of the leaders in the movement for the erection of Minnesota Territory and after 1849 was identified intimately with the development of Minnesota. He surveyed and plotted parts of the town at the Falls of St. Anthony (now part of Minneapolis), opened a hardware store, and was elected a member of the first territorial legislature. In 1851 he removed to St. Paul, where he plunged into a variety of activities, each of which seemed to him to promise greater possibilities than the last, for "his was the sanguine temperament in excess". He established and ran for a time a hardware store, was county surveyor, and in 1853 with his brother and Nathaniel P. Langford, he set up a bank which prospered until the panic of 1857. He was chairman of the convention that founded the Republican party in Minnesota, sought unsuccessfully the office of delegate to Congress, and in 1861 started the St. Paul Daily Press, which soon absorbed the Minnesotian. He soon sold his interest in the newspaper to his assistant editor, Joseph A. Wheelock, and entered upon that brief period of soldiering that probably brought him more satisfaction than any other experience. When the 7th Minnesota Infantry was recruited he was made lieutenant-colonel. He served with Sibley against the Sioux in the Minnesota Valley and participated in the punitive campaign of 1863. The 7th Infantry was then transferred to the South and attached to the XVI Army Corps. He was colonel in November 1863, and he campaigned in Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Commanding his brigade at the siege of Mobile, he was wounded at the attack on Spanish Fort. The regiment was mustered out at Fort Snelling in August 1865, in time for him to capitalize his military prestige in the biennial gubernatorial campaign. Banking, farming, stock-raising, and other ventures engaged his attention but in none of them was he very successful, and he died poor. In 1894 Marshall went to Pasadena, where he died on January 8, 1896.
William Rainey Marshall is known as the fifth Governor of Minnesota from January 8, 1866 to January 9, 1870 and was a member of the Republican party. He served as an officer in the 7th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War (1861–1865). He was cited for distinguished skill and bravery in the fighting about Nashville in December 1864, and he was brevetted brigadier-general. He was nominated, elected by a narrow margin, and reelected in 1867. No significant events marked his career as governor. He vetoed a bill to move the seat of government from St. Paul, and he vainly urged the legislature to redeem the credit of the state in the matter of the "Five Million Loan. " A number of enterprises occupied him after his term as governor ended. He was one of the first railroad and warehouse commissioners in the state, holding the office from 1874 to 1882. He was one of the founders and a life-long member of the Swedenborgian Church of St. Paul. He also was a president the state historical society in 1868 and nominally its secretary from 1893 to 1895.
In 1854 Marshall married Abby Langford.
