Marshall

The Marshalls

George Marshall and Elizabeth Brown were, by all accounts, born in the Abbeville district of South Carolina. Of George Marshall's parents, little is known for sure.

` It is believed that his father's name was William and his mother's maiden name was Ross. Several generations of descendants and the work of at least one professional genealogist have not been able to prove or disprove those suppositions.

Elizabeth Brown was the daughter of John Brown and Anna Lahney Anderson. John Brown's origins are not certain. We have no record of parents or siblings. It is possible that he was born in Ireland. That is listed on several census records. The only solid physical clue to that is a tiny pocket almanac, printed in Ireland in 1781. It was kept and passed on through the family; it was one piece of an old life small enough to survive the miles and the years. It belonged to a sister or sister-in-law of Elizabeth Brown. Someone in the family was likely in Ireland in 1781.

However, John Brown also stated that he was born in Charleston, South Carolina somewhere between 1782 and 1784.

Anna Anderson was born in Virginia. The Anderson family was large and scattered. Some of them joined with the Marshalls and the Browns. Anna had died, however, before the core family group made their westward migration. We do not currently know the names of her parents, although there are so many William Andersons in the family (W.R., W.H., W.J Anderson), it is not unreasonable to assume her father’s name was William.

From the Marshall Bible, we know that George was born on September 26, 1800. Elizabeth Brown Marshall was born on April 22, 1808. They were married on November 2, 1826.The Bible is the only physical record of their early life.

From the Portrait and Biographical Record of Johnson and Pettis Counties, we are told that, "George and Elizabeth (Brown) Marshall...were born, reared and married in South Carolina, and in that state, their two eldest children were born." James Alexander and Sarah Ann Marshall were the first two children, born in 1827 and 1830, respectively, which puts George and Elizabeth in South Carolina until April of 1830. By July 12, 1830, they were in Cooper County, Missouri. John Brown signed documents for George Marshall there.

We don't know why they moved from South Carolina, but George and Elizabeth made Missouri their home. For a short time, they lived in Cooper County. Then they, the Browns, the Andersons, the Humes, and the rest of their group moved to Pettis County, Missouri in 1833.

In 1833, there were no towns and no cities in Pettis County. Sedalia did not yet exist. There were no stores, no roads, no trains when they moved there. Their early years were probably full of both privation and determination. For the next twenty years, they settled the land. They helped build the first homes, schools, and churches. They had eight more children.

George Marshall died on November 20, 1856. Elizabeth lived nearly another decade, dying of the measles on Jan. 16, 1865.

With few physical clues of their lives, what do we know of George and Elizabeth? We know they were dedicated to family. George's brother, Samuel, and sister, Sarah, traveled with him. Samuel Marshall was the first recorded death in Pettis County. He died in 1836.

George's sister, Sarah, had married Alexander Brown, Elizabeth's brother. John Brown, Alexander and Sarah, and a contingent of the original settlers in Pettis County, moved on to Texas, where they were settlers of the Republic. We know John Brown had headrights to land there by 1841. Letters from Sarah and Alexander tell of their lives, their hardships, their losses.

We know that Elizabeth smoked a pipe!

We know by responses from John, Alexander, and Sarah Marshall Brown, that both George and Elizabeth were quite literate. In fact, for people who lived on a prairie with no library, newspaper, or book in sight, they had an remarkable vocabulary. It makes their origins still more of a mystery. Who were they before they left South Carolina? Why did they leave?

Despite the primitive conditions of their early lives, all ten of George and Elizabeth's children lived to adulthood. Those children left an amazing record of their lives as they grew, left home, married, had children of their own, and, ultimately, died.