Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Love and War: The Eventful Life & Times of Polly & John Marshall
    Love and War: The Eventful Life & Times of Polly & John Marshall
    Love and War: The Eventful Life & Times of Polly & John Marshall
    Ebook157 pages2 hours

    Love and War: The Eventful Life & Times of Polly & John Marshall

    By Jaquelin Payne Taylor

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Much has been written about the legendary times of John Marshall, the longest serving chief justice in Supreme Court history, but little is known about the love of his life, his dearest Polly. Polly was shy and retiring and stayed in the background, but she was known as his closest confidant and advisor. This book shows how the enduring love that began during the Revolutionary War when Polly was only fourteen lasted and strengthened despite the turbulent times they faced both in war and peace. Their life together mirrors the time when Richmond, the new capital of Virginia, grew from a primitive village to a thriving port city, and the early bungalows, built to house legislators when the capital moved to Richmond during the war, were replaced by plantations-in-town.

    This book gives a rich and graphic picture of life in the new United States and of events impacting the lives of those dominant people who determined the nations future during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateNov 1, 2011
    ISBN9781462056958
    Love and War: The Eventful Life & Times of Polly & John Marshall
    Author

    Jaquelin Payne Taylor

    Jaquelin Payne Taylor, a resident of Henrico, Virginia, served as President of the National Society of Colonial Dames of Virginia and as a Regent of Gunston Hall, Mason, Neck, Va. She and her retired husband, Frederic Lord Taylor, have a son and daughter and three grand-daughters.

    Related to Love and War

    Related ebooks

    Historical Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      'A Farmer's Will Solved My Mystery'

      Dec 5, 2023

      Many fathers of illegitimate children born in past times disappeared from view, both in person and on paper. If you’ve hit such an obstacle, it may be possible to tease out his identity using DNA tests, court records and old wills. Peter Rollin was p

      3 min read

    • Article

      Off The Record

      Jan 12, 2021

      Off The Record
      2 min read

    • Article

      Your Letters

      Feb 11, 2020

      I was fascinated seeing the full page reproduction dated 1815 of Dartmoor Prison (FT January 2020). It reminded me that sometimes the prominent figures and events of the past can touch our everyday lives. Let me explain. Daniel Asher Alexander was th

      5 min read

    • Article

      'Guild Records Led To A Breakthrough'

      Feb 7, 2023

      Researching workingclass ancestors can involve sleuthing skills worthy of Sherlock Holmes, but there are many records to help. Details of apprenticeships and parish relief are among them, and these have enabled Chris Carver to discover a relative fro

      3 min read

    • Article

      Alcohol Insanity:

      Oct 8, 2021

      Alcohol Insanity:
      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Sep 19, 2023

      Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST WIN an AncestryDNA test kit from ancestry.co.uk WORTH £79 The writer of our star letter wins an AncestryDNA test worth £79 – so drop us a line and share your

      5 min read

    • Article

      It Fires The Imagination

      May 4, 2021

      It Fires The Imagination
      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘My Ancestors Were mps With Royal Connections’

      Dec 28, 2023

      YOUR CELEBRATING DISCOVERIES As she posted off her DNA test, Lynsey Ford had no idea of the amazing family secrets it would help her unlock. She would go on to discover ancestors who were members of Parliament, bishops and authors, and who had links

      5 min read

    • Article

      Dear Paul

      Mar 10, 2023

      Sometimes when we are researching our family history we stumble across a rather unique story and Colyn Storer and Lynn Plumer found exactly that, when they looked into the remarkable life of Elizabeth Waight. Elizabeth was born on 27 December 1840 at

      11 min read

    • Article

      Dear Paul

      Nov 12, 2021

      We end another extremely busy and entertaining year on the family history miscellany front by tying up a few loose ends from earlier editions, plus we have the usual mix of genealogy gems, mysteries and challenges to keep you entertained over the fes

      9 min read

    • Article

      ‘My Daniel Relations Made Their Mark On British History’

      Nov 16, 2021

      The truth really can be stranger than fiction, as Roger Gosling discovered when he began researching his ancestors. While most of us would be happy to find one celebrated individual on our tree, he found a glittering array from high-ranking army and

      6 min read

    • Article

      One Year, One Day, One Place

      Sep 10, 2021

      One Year, One Day, One Place
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      May 5, 2020

      Letters
      5 min read

    • Article

      Your LETTERS

      Aug 13, 2021

      Your LETTERS
      7 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jun 30, 2020

      Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      Dear Paul

      Sep 10, 2021

      Dear Paul
      10 min read

    • Article

      How Did You Do?

      Jun 12, 2020

      How Did You Do?
      3 min read

    • Article

      Your Questions Answered

      Feb 11, 2022

      QResearch has led to my husband’s Gt-Gt-Grandfather Edward Hawkins, born on St. Helier, Jersey, occupation plasterer (census). A baptism has been found for Edward Mardon Hawkins on 25 December 1814, on St. Helier, Jersey, son of Edward Mardon Hawkins

      12 min read

    • Article

      Your Questions Answered

      Feb 11, 2022

      QResearch has led to my husband’s Gt-Gt-Grandfather Edward Hawkins, born on St. Helier, Jersey, occupation plasterer (census). A baptism has been found for Edward Mardon Hawkins on 25 December 1814, on St. Helier, Jersey, son of Edward Mardon Hawkins

      12 min read

    • Article

      Dear Paul

      Jan 13, 2023

      Back in October I looked at how researching your ancestors’ occupations can help you gain a better understanding of their daily lives, and asked readers to send details of some of the more interesting occupations that you have discovered on your fami

      10 min read

    • Article

      Your LETTERS

      Jan 14, 2022

      Your LETTERS
      10 min read

    • Article

      Mosaic

      Jul 24, 2018

      Mosaic
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Love and War

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Love and War - Jaquelin Payne Taylor

      Contents

      Illustration Credits

      The Families

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & AUTHOR’S NOTE

      ENDNOTES

      BIBLIOGRAPHY

      Index

      black.jpg

      to my grand-daughters

      Katherine, Jaquelin, and Rebecca Bishof

      black.jpg

      Illustration Credits

      Front Cover, Mary (Polly) Ambler Marshall, photograph courtesy of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) at Old Salem

      Custom House, Yorktown, VA

      Jaquelin-Ambler House, Jamestown, VA

      Ruins of the Jaquelin-Ambler House, Jamestown

      The Hollow, Preservation Virginia

      St. John’ Church, Richmond, VA, VCU Libraries

      Stone marking meeting of Tarlton and Cornwallis, Richmond, VA

      Custom House tablet honoring Admiral de Grasse

      Grace Episcopal Church, Yorktown

      The Cave, Yorktown

      Augustine Moore House, Yorktown

      Yorktown Victory Monument

      The Locket, Preservation Virginia

      Polly Ambler’s wedding dress, Library of Virginia

      Ambler-Marshall wedding marker in Hanover County

      John Marshall in 1793, from an engraving, Library of Virginia

      Spring garden at the Marshall House, Richmond, VA

      Bookcase in main dining room at Marshall House, Preservation Virginia

      Family dining room in Marshall House, Preservation Virginia

      The Marshall’s Country Retreat in Eastern Henrico, VA

      Virginia State Capitol, VCU Libraries

      Statue of George Washington by Houdon in Capitol Rotunda, VCU Libraries

      The Executive Mansion, Capitol Square, Richmond VA, VCU Libraries

      Monumental Church, Richmond, VA, VCU Libraries

      The James River & Kanawha Canal at Westham,VA

      Fauquier White Sulphur Springs by Edward Beyer, Library of Virginia

      Note: The unidentified photographs were taken by the author’s husband.

      The Families

      Randolphs & Marshalls

      1 William Randolph I of Turkey Island 1651-1711

      . .+Mary Isham of Bermuda Hundred

      . . . . 2 William Randolph II of Chatsworth 1681-1742

      . . . . . . .+Elizabeth Beverley

      . . . . 2 Thomas Randolph of Tuckahoe 1683-1729

      . . . . . . +Judith Fleming

      . . . . . . . .3 William Randolph

      . . . . . . . .3 Judith Randolph

      . . . . . . . .3 Mary Isham Randolph 1714—

      . . . . . . . . . +James Keith 1696-1757

      . . . . . . . . . . .4 Mary Randolph Keith 1737-1809

      . . . . . . . . . . . . +Thomas Marshall 1730-1802

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 John Marshall 1755-1835

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .+Mary Willis Ambler 1766-1831

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 other issue Marshall

      . . . . . . . . . . .4 other issue Keith

      . . . . 2 Isham Randolph of Dungeness 1685-1742

      . . . . . . +Jane Rogers

      . . . . . . . 3 Jane Randolph

      . . . . . . . . . +Peter Jefferson 1707-1757

      . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . +Martha Wayles Skelton

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Martha Jefferson

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Mary Jefferson

      . . . . 2 other issue Randolph

      The Families

      Jaquelins & Amblers

      1 Edward Jaquelin 1664-1739

      . . +Martha Cary

      . . . . 2 Elizabeth Jaquelin 1709-1756

      . . . . . . +Richard Ambler 1690-1766

      . . . . . . . . 3 Edward Ambler 1733-1768

      . . . . . . . . . . .+ Mary Cary 1738-1781

      . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Sara Ambler 1760-1782

      . . . . . . . . . . . . +William Macon

      . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 John Ambler 1762-1836

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . .+Frances Armistead

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . .+Lucy Marshall 1768-1793

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . .+Catherine Bush Norton

      . . . . . . . . 3 John Ambler

      . . . . . . . . 3 Jaquelin Ambler

      . . . . . . . . . . . + Rebecca Burwell 1746-1806

      . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Elizabeth Jaquelin Ambler 1765-1842

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + William Brent

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + Edward Carrington

      . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Mary Willis Ambler 1766-1831

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +John Marshall 1755-1835

      . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Ann Ambler 1772-1832

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + George Fisher

      . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Lucy Nelson Ambler 1776-1846

      . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + Daniel Call

      . . . . 2 Martha Jaquelin

      . . . . 2 Mary Jaquelin

      The Families

      Children of Polly & John Marshall

      Thomas Marshall 1784-1835

      +Margaret Lewis 1792-1829

      Jaquelin Marshall 1787-1852

      +Eliza Clarkson 1798-1868

      Mary Marshall 1795-1841

      +Jaquelin Harvie 1788-1856

      John Marshall 1798-1833

      +Elizabeth Alexander 1802-1847

      James Keith Marshall 1800-1862

      +Claudia Burwell 1804-1884

      Edward Carrington Marshall 1805-1882

      +Rebecca Peyton 1810-1888

      CHAPTER ONE

      A Wartime Romance in Yorktown

      I t was wartime in Yorktown in 1780, but Mary Willis (Polly) Ambler, not quite fourteen years old, was determined to go to the ball that was to be held in honor of the new man in town, twenty-four-year-old Captain John Marshall. Polly’s elder sister Eliza, all of fifteen years old and one of the organizers of the ball, thought that little Polly was too young, and, furthermore, she had not even been to dancing school and had no suitable ball gown. The latter problem was overcome when their mother produced an old blue silk dress of hers that had been made in London years earlier. It was altered for Polly, but reportedly it was still far too large for her petite and slender frame.

      Captain Marshall had done a lot of marching during the previous five years in the country’s fight for Independence, but it is doubtful that he had attended any balls. As he had grown up on the frontier in what is now Fauquier County, Virginia, he probably had not attended dancing school either. The eldest of fifteen children of Mary and Thomas Marshall, John had been born in Germantown, a little crossroads near Warrenton, where his surveyor father had settled after leaving Westmoreland County. There, his father met and married Mary Randolph Keith, the daughter of Mary Isham Randolph and the Reverend James Keith, Church of England minister of the Parish of Hamilton.

      John Marshall’s mother was a second cousin of Thomas Jefferson, but the upbringing of the young cousins had been very different. Jefferson had been brought up in the central Piedmont area of the Virginia colony between his surveyor father’s Shadwell homestead near the village of Charlottesville and the seat of his maternal Randolph kin, Tuckahoe, west of Richmond. The small city of Richmond had only been laid in blocks on a map by Colonel William Byrd II of Westover in 1737.

      When the young Captain Marshall met Polly in 1780, he had been a deputy judge advocate on the legal staff of General Washington at Valley Forge. John was on an extended leave to visit his family and to recruit in Virginia. Desertions and expired enlistments had caused his regiment, like others in the army, to dwindle away. John welcomed the chance to see his family again, first visiting his mother and siblings in Fauquier and then his father, Colonel Thomas Marshall, in Yorktown. Colonel Marshall was Commander of the artillery regiment stationed in Yorktown, popularly known as Marshall’s Artillery. The officers were housed in a house commandeered from a British sympathizer who had fled at the onset of the Revolution.

      Two other Marshall sons, James Markham and Thomas, as well as a nephew, Humphrey, were also officers in Marshall’s Artillery. Their next door neighbors were the influential Councilor of State, Jaquelin Ambler, his wife Rebecca Burwell Ambler, and their four daughters; Eliza, Mary Willis (Polly), Ann, and Lucy. Jaquelin Ambler, like his fellow patriots, had pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor to the Revolution.

      The Revolution had disrupted the Amblers comfortable lifestyle along with Mr. Ambler’s business as a prosperous merchant and planter. Before hostilities began, the Ambler family had lived on the bluff above the town of York overlooking the broad river port. The two-story frame dwelling described as a very commodious one with four rooms above and four below was built by Jaquelin Ambler’s father, Richard, in 1721. Other buildings on the property were a little brick storehouse (Custom House) kitchen, stables, and washhouse. There was a well cultivated garden.¹

      01-custom%20house.JPG

      Custom House, Yorktown,VA

      Richard Ambler had been a successful Yorktown merchant and Customs Collector for the port of York. The Custom House has been called the Cradle of the American Tariff System and is one of the oldest structures of its kind in the country. During the 18th century, Yorktown was the Virginia port of entry for all of the northern cities, and both ships and goods had to clear through the Yorktown Custom house.²

      In 1768, Jaquelin Ambler became Collector of Customs for the port of York following the death of his brother Edward. The normally lucrative job was not profitable after the outbreak of the Revolution because almost no shipping was coming in and out of the formerly busy port. Ships filled with tobacco from neighboring plantations were idle in the Chesapeake Bay because of the blockade by the English frigates.

      SSSSSS

      After hostilities began in 1775, the Amblers moved several times to other family properties that were further inland. To ten-year-old Eliza and nine-year-old Polly all of this moving around in the cause of liberty seemed an adventure at first. Their parents worried about the disruption in the children’s education caused by the absence of their tutor, Parson John Buchanan, who had lived with the Amblers and tutored the girls when he first came to this country. He had moved to Richmond to become the rector of the Henrico Parish Church (later to be named St. John’s Church) in 1775. When the family moved away from the war area, the parents continued their children’s education with books that they were able to bring from the family library. The reality of the Revolution had set in for Eliza and Polly when instead of morning lessons, they had to sew homespun clothes, instead of embroidering they knitted stockings, and instead of lessons on the harpsichord, they listened to the seeming never-ending banging of drums.³

      The Amblers had lost three infant children between the time of Polly’s birth in 1766 and that of her sister Ann in 1772. When they expected another child, they were understandingly anxious to be in a location safer than Yorktown. When their daughter, Lucy, was born they were at New Castle in Hanover County at another family residence further inland and more remote. Lucy was born one month after the Declaration of Independence was signed, and she was called their Independence baby.

      Polly and Eliza spent a winter with relatives who had a daughter Eliza’s age in the bustling frontier town of Winchester. The town’s diverse population was made up of Dutch, Irish, English, and Americans, neither patriots nor Tories, who just wanted to get away from the areas of conflict. New arrivals were Quakers seeking a safe haven from British-occupied Philadelphia and young officers just liberated from prisons in Canada. Eliza later recollected that their relatives were too busy to provide proper supervision. My sister, my cousin, and myself were left entirely to our wayward humors, and, but for the remarkable discretion of my sister [Polly] who was only twelve years of age, my cousin and myself would have been perpetually involved in difficulties.

      After the Amblers vacated their Yorktown home, it was taken over by the Virginia Militia to be used as a barracks. In 1776, Jaquelin Ambler petitioned the Virginia House of Delegates to take it over after payment to him of a reasonable sum for the damage done by the troops to the house, fences, outhouse, and garden. He said that the property could no longer be used as a residence for his family. Ambler’s petition was denied, and in 1778 he sold the property to Thomas Wyld, Jr. who operated an ordinary (inn or tavern) in the dwelling.⁴

      Jaquelin Ambler’s fortune had been pledged to the Revolution, his job as collector of Customs had ended because of the War, and now his house had been

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1