Historic Sites

The John Marshall House is the premiere historic site associated with John Marshall in Richmond, Virginia, owned and operated by APVA Preservation Virginia. Built in 1790, the house is the oldest surviving brick house in the Capital City of Richmond. During John Marshall’s lifetime, the house sat on four lots that took up a full city block. It was part of a complex that also included his law office, laundry, kitchen, garden, stable and carriage house and turn-around. Here Marshall, his family, and the enslaved and free servants who made  up his household worked and lived for forty-five years. It contains a rich collection of family-owned furnishings and Marshall family memorabilia.

Postcard image showing the John Marshall House with since-removed John Marshall High School in background, circa 1940.

For more information on the John Marshall House visit
www.apva.org/marshall/house

Shockoe Hill Cemetery provides a peaceful setting for the gravesite of John and Mary Willis Ambler Marshall. John Marshall was buried in the family plot July 10th, 1835. Situated just a few minutes from the John Marshall House, it is located on Hospital Street between Second and Fourth Street.

Shockhoe Hill Cemetery, where the gravesites of John and Mary Willis Ambler Marshall lie together in the second oldest "municipal" cemetery in Richmond, opened in 1822.

The cemetery, established in 1822, was the second municipal graveyard to be opened in Richmond, St. John's Church being the first city sponsored site in 1799. Many of John Marshall's neighbors such Pastor John D. Blair, Reverend John Buchanan, John Wickam and John Harvie are interred nearby. Famous politicians, such as Governor William H. Cabell (1805-1808) and Civil War spy Elizabeth Van Lew are represented in the cemetery.

Restoration of the gravesite was last done in 1998 by Clinton Bush and Alan Rutherford of Cathedral Stone Products, Inc. of Jessup, Maryland. The tomb was cleaned, restored and leveled. Colonial Ironworks of Petersburg restored the iron fence surrounding the site.

Shockoe Hill Cemetery Rack Card
Soldiers of Shockoe Hill  
FoSHC 2007 Review
FoSHC State Marker Unveiling Ceremony
FoSHC Membership Form

Germantown is the birthplace of John Marshall. Located in the Virginia piedmont at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it lies about twenty-five miles northwest from the original "Fort Germanna" settlement (1714) just west of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Today it is an historic, unincorporated rural community in Fauquier County, Virginia, near the village of Midland just off of Route 28 and Germantown Road.

John's father, mother and grandmother moved from his father's homestead in Westmoreland County to a 250 acre parcel of Germantown called "Licking Run" in 1754. A year later, John was born on September 24th, 1755. If scholars are right, the birthplace was a story-and-a-half, two-bay-wide home, similar to the 1724 Tilman Weaver house depicted to your left.

Germantown, Marshall’s birthplace, as shown in this postcard image of the 1721 Tilman-Weaver home, Fauquier County. Marshall was probably born in a home similar to this.

It was here in Germantown that John’s father joined the local militia commanded by Major John Frogg. When John was four years old the county lines changed and the Germantown home became part of Fauquier County. As part of the county reconfiguration, the English court appointed John's Father "Justice of the Peace" and the principle surveyor of the territory. John's father later became a member of the House of Burgess, served as a militia commissioner and was appointed to the "Committee of Trade."

John lived at this location four almost ten years, learning English from his father and mother, helping with chores and watching his family grow. John was soon to have two more sisters (Elizabeth and Mary) and a brother (Thomas) before his father sold the homestead in August of 1765 and moved to a more northern location in the county on Goose Creek.

The Hollow was built in 1764 by Thomas Marshall (1730-1802), the Hollow was the boyhood home of John Marshall during the formative years of his life, between ages 10 and 18. The Hollow is one of Fauquier County’s earliest existing examples of fine frontier architecture and the earliest existing example of a structure built by Thomas Marshall. There are probably more than 10,000 Marshall descendants who can trace their lineage back to Thomas Marshall and Mary Randolph Keith Marshall and their modest frame house known as The Hollow.

The Hollow, Marshall's boyhood home, circa 1764. Image courtesy of APVA Preservation Virginia.

At age 35, Thomas Marshall moved his young, growing family (John, 1755; Elizabeth, 1756; Mary, 1757; Thomas, 1761; James, 1764) to his newly constructed one-and-a-half story frame house on a beautiful rise just north of present-day Markham, Virginia. Five more children were born to Thomas and Mary Marshall while living at the Hollow (Judith, 1766; William and Charles, 1767; Lucy, 1768; Alexander, 1770) bringing the total number of children living in the house to ten before moving to Oak Hill near Delaplane, Virginia. In addition to the 12 Marshall family members, a Scottish minister, James Thomson, came to live there temporarily in 1767, later becoming minister of Leeds Parish.

The Fauquier County Deed Book reveals that Thomas Marshall leased a 330 acre tract encompassing this property from Thomas Ludwell Lee and Richard Henry Lee in 1765. The lease was to run the lives of Thomas, Mary, or John, whichever was longest. Unlike many log houses built on the frontier at that time, the Hollow is a rare existing example of a wood frame house that has not been incorporated into a more recent structure.

Oak Hill was an early home of John Marshall, the Great Chief Justice. The wood-frame dwelling, completed in 1773 when John Marshall was 17, is a classic example of Virginia’s colonial vernacular. John Marshall became the owner of Oak Hill in 1785 when his father, Thomas Marshall, moved to Kentucky. Although John Marshall lived mostly in Richmond and Washington during his adult life, he kept and used his Fauquier County property, making improvements and using it as a retreat. In 1819 he built an attached Classical Revival house as a residence for his son, Thomas. In 1835 Oak Hill was inherited by Thomas Marshall’s son, John Marshall II, whose “overindulgence in hospitality” forced him to sell Oak Hill to his brother, Thomas. The property left the family after Thomas Marshall, Jr.’s, death during the Civil War.

Oak Hill can be seen from Interstate 66, and is located north of the highway just east of the exit for Route 17 near Delaplane. It is a private residence and is not open to the public.

Oak Hill, circa 1773, image courtesy of APVA Preservation Virginia. John Marshall became its owner in 1785 and often spent summers there with his family.