"The house is small, and more humble in appearance than those of the average of successful lawyers and merchants. I called there three times upon him; there is no bell to the door. Once I turned the handle of it and walked in unannounced; on the other two occasions he had seen me coming, and had lifted the latch and received me at the door, although he was at the time suffering from severe contusions received in the stage while travelling on the road from Fredericksburg to Richmond."
Chief Justice Marshall frequently attended the Monumental Church. The narrow pews troubled him, for he was quite tall. "Not finding room enough for his whole body within the pew, he used to take his seat nearest the door of his pew, and, throwing it open, let his legs stretch a little into the aisle."
The death of his wife was a great grief to him. "Never can I cease to feel the loss and to deplore it," he wrote on December 25, 1832, the anniversary of her death. "Grief for her is too sacred ever to be profaned on this day, which shall be, during my existence, marked by a recollection of her virtues."
He survived Mrs. Marshall less than five years. In June, 1835, he went to Dr. Physic in Philadelphia, seeking relief for a disability that had been aggravated by the road accident of which the English visitor wrote, as already quoted. There he died, July 6, 1835. On July 4 he wrote the inscription which he wished placed above his grave:
"John Marshall, son of Thomas and Mary Marshall, was born on the 24th of September, 1755, intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler the 3rd of January, 1783, departed this life the —— day of —— 18 ——."
The Marshall house is now in possession of the Society for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, having been purchased a few years ago from the Misses Harvie, the granddaughters of Chief Justice Marshall. They had lived in the house until they sold it to the city of Richmond.
Photo by H. P. Cook
WESTOVER ON THE JAMES, VIRGINIA
LXI