You enter the house through the basement, where you get your ticket but then move back outside to enter. There is a 10-minute video that introduces you to the man. Again, I have to admit to a staggering amount of ignorance when it comes to John Marshall. It isn’t that I haven’t heard his name or that I didn’t associate it with the Supreme Court, but I was no where near understanding that the court we have today is the brainchild of John Marshall. The Founding Fathers had created a three-part government, but they had no blueprint of how the ultimate balance of power would work out. John began formulating his philosophy as he spent the winter held up at Valley Forge with George Washington. He watched Washington struggle to get supplies from the 13 colonies, and he realized that the system wasn’t working.
Somehow I had never pictured John Marshall as a rugged frontier man, but that was exactly what he was. He was born in Farquiar County to Thomas Marshall, a surveyor who had worked under Washington in the French and Indian War and Mary Randolph Keith. Even in his later years he never cared much about how he look; he had a servant (slave) named Robin who was responsible for making sure he looked presentable. He had a long and varied career. He served under Lafayette as a special agent. He was the judge advocate, and after 5 months of legal training, his legal license was signed by his cousin Thomas Jefferson. In 1782, he was elected to the state legislature in Richmond. By the late 1780s, John Marshall was the leading lawyer in Richmond. His wife, Polly Ambler, was from a prominent family, and together they had 10 children.
After the birth of her 10th child, she became a recluse and never traveled with her husband. A housekeeper was hired to supervise the servants and slaves.
About 50% of the furniture in the house is original. We see his robes as Supreme Court Justice. We also see the locket that he gave to Polly as a wedding gift; it has strands of both of their hair in it. The house was built in the Georgian/Federal transition style. It has some very fine crown molding and fine mill-work paneling. The fireplaces are coal burning and the furniture is placed along the walls. We see the rooms where he would have entertained and where he would have practiced his law career. His desk is still in the house, and there is an English mahogany bookcase that was a wedding gift, which has never left the house.
Again, this house is more about the man than necessarily about the job that he did. It does, however, make you want to know more about the professional man.
There is a small garden behind the house and a gift store in the basement. You need to be able to climb stairs to visit here.