Fellow justice Bushrod Washington, a nephew of George Washington, became Marshall’s close friend. In 1801, President John Adams nominated his loyal Federalist supporter to become chief justice of the Supreme Court. House of Representatives, which Marshall won. In 1798, newly retired President Washington, long impressed by his fellow soldier and Federalist friend, convinced John Marshall to run for a seat in the U.S. Influenced by those wartime experiences, John Marshall - like George Washington - recognized the need for a strong central government and they became members of the Federalist party. He served alongside Washington at Valley Forge, and he participated with Washington in the Revolutionary War battles of Brandywine and Germantown in Pennsylvania, and Monmouth in New Jersey. John Marshall rose from the rank of lieutenant to captain in the 11th Virginia Regiment (1776 – 1780). The Minutemen were absorbed into George Washington’s Continental Army. At age 19, John Marshall joined his father in that service. In 1775, Thomas Marshall raised a unit of Virginia state militia that formed a portion of the famed Culpeper Minutemen. But how did John Marshall come to own it?

Marshall probably came upon Washington’s diary among his father’s possessions. John Marshall had accumulated considerable wealth and property. Trained as a banker, he served as executor of his father’s complex will. Marshall was one of John Marshall’s five sons. Institutional records reveal that in 1859 it was given by James K.

The story of how the best object was acquired has largely been forgotten. In gratitude, John Marshall presented the society a copy of his biography, The Life of George Washington, inscribed by the author “to the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society.” In 1831, when concerned Virginians created a “society” to preserve the records of their illustrious predecessors who had helped found the nation, they elected as the institution’s president a Founding Father. The story of the first object has often been told.

The other is the diary that President Washington kept in 1790 – 91 during his first term. The first object is a copy of Marshall’s biography of Washington. Both the first object acquired by the Virginia Historical Society and arguably one of the best objects in the VMHC collection are tied to a special relationship that existed between John Marshall and George Washington.

John marshall biography