John Marshall - Other Work, Later Life, Legacy

Other Work, Later Life, Legacy

Marshall loved his home, built in 1790, in Richmond, Virginia, and spent as much time there as possible in quiet contentment. While in Richmond he attended St. John's Church in Church Hill until 1814 when he led the movement to hire Robert Mills as architect of Monumental Church, which commemorated the death of 72 people in a theatre fire. The Marshall family occupied pew No. 23 at Monumental Church and entertained the Marquis de Lafayette there during his visit to Richmond in 1824. Marshall himself was not religious and never joined a church; he did not believe Jesus was a divine being. For approximately three months each year, he would be away in Washington for the Court's annual term; he would also be away for several weeks to serve on the circuit court in Raleigh, North Carolina.

In 1823, he became first president of the Richmond branch of the American Colonization Society, which was dedicated to resettling freed American slaves in Liberia, on the West coast of Africa. In 1828, he presided over a convention to promote internal improvements in Virginia.

In 1829, he was a delegate to the state constitutional convention, where he was again joined by fellow American statesman and loyal Virginians, James Madison and James Monroe, although all were quite old by that time (Madison was 78, Monroe 71, and Marshall 74). Marshall mainly spoke at this convention to promote the necessity of an independent judiciary.

In 1831, the 76-year old Marshall underwent an operation to remove bladder stones and recovered from it without complications. But his wife died at the end of the year and his health quickly declined from that point onward. In June 1835, he traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for medical treatment, where he died on July 6 at the age of 79, having served as Chief Justice for over 34 years.

Two days before his death, he enjoined his friends to place only a plain slab over his and his wife's graves, and he wrote the simple inscription himself. His body, which was taken to Richmond, lies in Shockoe Hill Cemetery in a well kept grave.

JOHN MARSHALL
Son of Thomas and Mary Marshall
was born September 24, 1755
Intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler
the 3rd of January 1783
Departed this life
the 6th day of July 1835.

Marshall was one of the last surviving Founding Fathers; among the few statesmen of the founding generation who survived him were James Madison, Aaron Burr, and Paine Wingate. He was also the last surviving Cabinet member from the John Adams administration. Some of the papers of John Marshall are held by the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William & Mary.