been quite customary with writers about Marshall to characterize him as care less in dress even to slovenliness. It is true that nothing could make him a fashionable man. The style of his garments were usually out of date as respects the de crees of fashion; but we have the word of a daughter-in-law that all who knew him best and saw him daily testified as to the neatness of his attire. His plain, simple and old-fashioned ideas in this regard, and his refusal to conform his apparel to that of other men about him, together with his mod est bearing, has served to bring- down to us some amusing anecdotes. One morning he called upon a lady who had recently mar ried his brother, but whom he had never met. She was expecting a visit from the butcher to look at a calf she wished to sell. The servant casually observing his appearance, being also unacquainted with him, hastily deemed him unworthy to be ushered into the parlor, and his sister-in-law, being informed that a man was waiting at the door to see her, mistook him for the butcher, and ordered that he be conducted to the stable to see the calf. Mr. Marshall explained who he was, whereupon the lady, much mortified, at once invited him into the house It was, however, no unusual occurrence for that distinguished man to walk the streets from the market to his home with a turkey or other supplies for his table. It was then the custom, indeed, for gentlemen to attend personally to their own marketing; and it is said that "the Old Market on lower Main Street, in Richmond, witnessed many friendly meetings each morning of solid men and echoed to much wise and witty talk. Behind each gentleman stood and walked a negro footman, bearing a big bas ket in which the morning purchases were de posited and taken home." Judge Marshall on such occasions would chat with acquaintances in his usual happy manner; but in general carried his own bas ket, or, if that carry-all had been forgotten, he would bestow his newly-bought pro
visions about his person as seemed at the time most convenient. . . . He certainly paid some attention to the demands of his office in the way of dress, because, as he informs his wife, in 1825, he administered the oath of office to President John Quincy Adams, and was clad in a "new suit of domestic manufacture;" and he also informs his wife that the President was dressed in the same manner, though the cloth of the garments of the latter was, as he said, made at a different establishment. He adds, with some satisfaction, that "the cloth is very fine and smooth." ' An English traveler gives a touching pic ture of the Chief Justice during his last days: "The Judge is a tall, venerable man, about eighty years of age, his hair tied in a cue according to the olden custom, and with a countenance indicating that simplicity of mind and benignity which so eminently dis tinguishes his carriage. His house is small and more humble in appearance than those of the average successful lawyers or merchants. I called three times upon him; there was no bell to the door. Once I turned the han dle of it and walked in unannounced. On the other two occasions he had seen me coining and lifted the latch and received me at the door, although he was at the time suffering from some very severe contusions received in a stage while traveling on the road from Fredericksburg to Richmond. I verily believe there is not a particle of vanity in his composition." Such was the man, simple, kindly, great — the noble attributes of true manhood.1 Shortly after the close of the war Marshall met the lady to whom he was subsequently married. An air of romance surrounds the circumstance of that first meeting. Mar shall had been invited to attend a ball held in the neighborhood of - the residence of Jacquelin Ambler, in York, in the winter of 1 Mr. Chief Justice Potter.
- Judge Le Baron B. Colt.
