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Latest Update: 19 January 2009
The first
child of Samuel Marshall (1801-1835) and Phebe Perry (1803-1885), "Sim" Hovey was a merchant and hotel-keeper,
a farmer, and a citizen who was active in the communities where he made his home: Lisbon and Franklin, in Venango County,
Pennsylvania; and from the 1870s until his death, Simeon (near Charlottesville), Virginia. He was named for his "grandfather"--Dr. Simeon Hovey of Happy Retreat, Hovey Twp., Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. Indirect evidence
seems to show that Dr. Hovey and his wife Mary Ann "Polly" Truby Hovey provided
a home for Simeon's father Samuel after Samuel's parents died in 1806 on the Ohio
frontier. His Aunt Polly Hovey was the sister of Samuel's mother, Catharina. Simeon Marshall married Mary Jane Hoover
(1829-1886), and they were parents of seven children (see names below).
Click on underlined words, above, for more information.
CHILDREN OF SIMEON H. MARSHALL
AND MARY JANE HOOVER
Mary Bailey Marshall Fletcher (1850-1924)
Elizabeth "Lizzie" Hoover Marshall Behrendt (1851-1925)
Alpheus “Al” Hoover Marshall
(1854-1891)
Samuel M. Marshall (1856-?)
Jane “Jennie” Marshall
Souder (about 1859-after 1930)
Sarah “Sadie” Marshall (1866-1919)
Lyda Marshall MacConnell (1873-?)
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| Awaiting a Photograph of Mary Jane Hoover Marshall (1829-1886) |
At Home in Pennsylvania
(add text . . .)
The Marshall House in Franklin, Pennsylvania
I've found two references to the hotel kept by Simeon
H. Marshall during some of the years he and his family lived in Franklin, Venango County, Pennsylvania.
One may provide a clue to his relocating to Virginia in the 1870s. It appears within the chapter on the city
of Franklin, in the section discussing bridges:
“Friday morning, December 31, 1870, a fire
broke out in a building known as the Marshall house at the steamboat landing on the lower
side of the bridge, whence it was communicated to the toll house. The suspension
wires were anchored beyond these houses and passed over them to the towers of the bridge. While the crowd that had collected
were engaged in saving the furniture in the toll house, one of the wires snapped from the effect of the heat. The structure swayed perceptibly; several other of the wires broke until the whole support of the lower
side of the bridge was gone. The first span sank to an angle of forty-five degrees, precipitating some of the persons
thereon to the ice below, and in another moment it was hanging like a pendulum. The
remaining supports broke and fell with a crash, burying several victims in the ruins.
The entire structure was completely wrecked, and with the loss of life involved this constitutes one of the most
fatal casualties in the history of the city.”
History of Venango County, Pennsylvania:
its past and present . . . [Chicago: Brown, Runk & Co., 1890], page 386.
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The other reference is just plain fascinating--a glimpse of
one occasion in 1864, when John Wilkes Booth and the author of the article found themselves in a tiff with some "rivermen"
at the Marshall House. Booth spent time in the region as an oilman before his infamous crime of
April 1865. Alfred W. Smiley writes:
"Booth was a trained athlete
and very strong and quick. I was also pretty strong and active, being then twenty-one years old and did not fear any common
man in a rough and tumble. I recall an incident, however, when we both got the worst of the encounter. The occasion was at
a dance at the Marshall House, located at the Franklin end of
the bridge over the Allegheny river, kept by one Sim Marshall, whither
we had gone one evening out of curiosity; as far as the party was concerned our curiosity was entirely satisfied, as we were
both entertained handsomely. On the night of the aforesaid dance there were lying near the bridge several steamboats and a
number of lumber fleets, and the crowd assembled at the dance was rather a motley one, there being in attendance a goodly
number of deckhands from the steamboats and freshwater sailors from the lumber fleets. A row was started (probably accidental),
and in our desire to see how things were moving we crowded in quite close to where the mill was being pulled off.
"This attracted the attention of several of the waltzers
who, as the sequel will show, decided that our dudish appearance did not warrant our eagerness to get so close to the scene
of action. To end the story, they deliberately went for us regardless of how much they soiled
our clothes, and after charging several times they threw us out with the orders not to return into the house.
"We did not request that the order be countermanded, but
struck a beeline for up town, with the understanding between us that we would keep our dance experience to ourselves. It leaked
out, however, and we were often nagged by our friends."
Smiley, Alfred Wilson. A Few Scraps, Oily and Otherwise (Oil
City, PA: The Derrick Publishing Company, 1927), pages 80-81.
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Why Did They Move?
Why did Simeon Marshall, in the 1870s when he was in his 50s, move his entire family from their familiar home places
and family (including his elderly mother) in Venango County, Pennsylvania, to begin a new life as a farmer near Charlottesville,
Virginia? Included in that migration were his daughter and son-in-law, Mary
and Charles Fletcher, who already had established a family of their own. Did
it have to do with the fire which began in his hotel, the Marshall House, on New Year's Eve 1870? See
above, for the account of this event from a Venango County history.
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Perhaps his
descendants recall family traditions about that important migration? The year
2007 brought the great, good fortune of connecting with many of them—Fletcher descendants with
surnames Williams, Clark, Wilber, Smith, Thompson, Taylor [and Marshall—not
our line!]; and Behrendt descendants, the Gleasons.
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