Thomas C. Marshall (July 21, 1784 – June 29, 1835) was an American lawyer, planter, and politician. He lived at Oak Hill plantation and represented Fauquier County in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1830 until his death in 1835.
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Early life
The firstborn of Chief Justice John Marshall and his wife, the former Mary Willis Ambler (both families being among the First Families of Virginia), Thomas Marshall was named for his paternal grandfather, the revolutionary Thomas Marshall who moved to Fauquier County and built Oak Hill, then gave it to his son John Marshall as he moved further westward into Kentucky. Thomas Marshall received a private education locally, then graduated from Princeton University in 1803, after which he read law.
He married Margaret Wardrop Lewis (1792–1829) in 1809 and had sons John James Marshall (1811-1854), Fielding Lewis Marshall (1819-1902) and Col. Thomas C. Marshall (1826-1864), as well as daughters Agnes Harwood Marshall Taliaferro (b. 1819), Mary Marshall Archer (1816-1878), Ann Lewis Marshall Jones (1821-1880) and Margaret Lewis Marshal Smith (1823-1907).
Career
This Thomas Marshall lived at Oak Hill, his grandfather's former estate in Fauquier County which John Marshall had inherited in 1803 and used as a summer retreat. He built an attached house for this Thomas Marshall in 1819, after which Thomas lived on and operated the estate, which was initially in disrepair and its soil exhausted. Like his grandfather, father and brothers, Thomas Marshall farmed using enslaved labor. In the 1820 federal census, he owned 48 slaves, as well as had a young son, two young daughters and an overseer living with his family. In the 1830 federal census, Thomas Marshall owned 64 slaves in addition to the eight white people in his household.