John Marshall

            
             "The work of John Marshall has been of supreme importance in the development of the American Nation, and its influence grows as time passes. Less is know of Marshall, however, than of any of the great Americans. Indeed, so little has been written of his personal life, and such exalted, if vague, encomium has been paid him, that, even to the legal profession, he has become a kind of mythical being, endowed with Virtues and wisdom not of this earth."1 John Marshall became on of the most influential leaders of his time. He was fourth chief justice of the United States and Congressman from his native state of Virginia.
             John Marshall was born in Germantown, Fauquier County, Virginia on September 24, 1755. Both parents, while not formally educated, were considered adequately educated for the times and could read and write. "They held a significant social, religious, and political status in the newly formed Fauquier County area."2 A Scotch minister who came to live with them in 1767 provided Marshall's first bit of formal education; then in 1772 he received his second time of formal education at the academy of Reverend Archibald Campbell. Because they had long before decided that John Marshall was going to be a lawyer, when Blackstone's "commentaries" was published in America, John Marshall's father bought a copy for him to read and study because they had long before decided that John Marshall was going to be a lawyer. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, Marshall joined a company of state militia that became part of the Eleventh Regiment of Virginia Troops and was chosen Lieutenant and the captain.
             John Marshall studied law at the College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Va. He engaged in the practice of law in Fauquier County. When Marshall came to visit Thomas Marshall, his father, he knew Mary Ambler who he married on January 3, 1783. John Marshall was an indifferent dresser, often wearing mismatched clothing and an old slouch hat, and rather rustic in bearing.