Marshall, Thomas A., Col.

The following data is extracted from Biographical Sketches, Coles County, Illinois - Charleston Township.

Col. Thomas A. Marshall, deceased, late of Charleston; was a son of Hon. Thos A. Marshall, a prominent lawyer, and for more than twenty years Judge of the Court of Appeals of Kentucky; he was born in Frankfort, Ky., Nov. 4, 1817; in early childhood, he removed with his parents to Paris, Bourbon Co., Ky.; his opportunities for obtaining an education were excellent and were appreciated and improved by him; he early became a student in Transylvania University, and, in about 1833, entered Kenyon College, but near the close of the Junior year, he left College, and was employed for a few months on the survey of the Louisville & Lexington Railroad; after reading law and attending a course of lectures in the law department of Transylvania University, in Lexington, Ky., his father being then a law professor in that institution, he was admitted to the bar, and, in 1837, began practice in Vicksburg, Miss., where he enjoyed a very successful law practice until his removal to Illinois. He was married Sept. 4. 1838, to Miss Ellen I. Miles, daughter of Dr. James I. Miles, of Frankfort, Ky.; in November, 1839, he removed to Coles Co., where he bad previously purchased a tract of 800 acres of land, known as Dead Man's Grove; he removed to Charleston two years afterward and resumed the practice of his profession; turning his attention to politics, he became a leading politician, and was associated with Abraham Lincoln, Lyman Trumbull, David Davis, John M. Palmer, N. B. Judd and others in the organization of the Republican party in 1856, previously to which time he had been an Old Line Whig; in 1847, he had been a member of the State Constitutional Convention, and, in 1856, was a member of the Republican State Convention, and the same year, at the earnest personal solicitation of Mr. Lincoln, he became a candidate for the State Senate on the Republican ticket, and was elected by a large majority. He was subsequently in 1860, elected to the same office on the Presidential ticket which elected Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States; it should be mentioned that in 1853 he became Cashier of the Farmers' and Traders' Bank in Charleston and continued as such during the existence of the same. In July, 1861, he became Colonel of the 18t I. V. C., and served his country gallantly and faithfully until the muster-out of his regiment in the fall of 1862. In July, 1863, he was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Utah, but shortly afterward resigned his position; in 1864, he was appointed Postmaster at Vicksburg, Miss., holding that office until July, 1865; he was President of the bank of T. A. Marshall & Co. until its reorganization as the Second National Bank, when, owing to ill health, he retired to his farm, where he resided until his death on the 11th of November, 1873; he left a family of six children - William S. (now in business in Denver, Colo.), Eliza M. ( Mrs. J. W. True, of Louisa Co., Iowa), James M. (now a Captain in the Quartermaster's Department of the regular army and stationed in Baltimore), Thomas A. (of Denver, Colo.), Charles T. and John H.; Mrs. Marshall and the youngest two members of her family reside in Charleston.

Source: Biographical Sketches, Coles County, Illinois - Charleston Township

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