Inside Oak Hill: John Marshall’s Ancestral Home
Written by Heidi Baumstark | Photos by Michael Butcher
A robed statue sits stoically in Warrenton’s public square. This figure is John Marshall, a Fauquier County native who would become the famed military man, lawyer, statesman, and one of our nation’s founding fathers.
In 1799, Marshall was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as congressman for Virginia’s 13th district. In 1800, he served as secretary of state under President John Adams, and the following year, Adams appointed him to the Supreme Court. This third appointment made him one of the few Americans to have held a constitutional office in each of the three federal branches of government.
In 1801, Marshall was appointed as America’s fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court. Widely regarded as one of the most influential justices ever, earning him the moniker “The Great Chief Justice,” he served in that role for 34 years until his death in 1835, holding the record for the longest-serving chief justice.
Marshall’s Roots: From Germantown to Oak Hill
John Marshall’s father, Thomas Marshall, settled at Germantown, Virginia — present-day Midland — on a tract of land granted in 1720 to a group of German miners who worked in Orange County’s iron mines. In 1754, Thomas married Mary Randolph Keith, who brought into the Marshall circle an assortment of brilliant minds, including Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, John Randolph of Roanoke, Richard Henry Lee, “Lighthorse Harry” Lee, and his son, Robert Edward Lee. A year later, on September 24, 1755, John Marshall was born, the first of 15 children. The family resided in a small log cabin. That cabin no longer stands, but the John Marshall Birthplace Park on Germantown Road includes a memorial marker indicating where it once stood.
Thomas served as George Washington’s deputy surveyor in Culpeper County. He obtained his license from the College of William & Mary in 1759, becoming Fauquier’s first county surveyor. Thomas soon joined Washington in helping the prominent Fairfax family collect rent and survey their estate, which his son, John, would go on to purchase after the Revolutionary War.
In 1765, when John was 9, his father moved the growing family 32 miles northwest, from Germantown to Markham. The wooden-frame house Thomas built was called “The Hollow” due to its location surrounded by mountains. The Hollow is now part of the John Marshall’s Leeds Manor Rural Historic District, which was listed in 2004 on the National Register of Historic Places.
John received his early education at home from his parents, his father’s library, and a tutor. His tutor, Rev. James Thomson, was from Scotland but “lived at first in the family of Thomas Marshall at ‘The Hollow’ near the present village of Markham, where he taught the elder children,” according to “Fauquier During the Proprietorship.” John would gain additional siblings at The Hollow before moving to Oak Hill, located five miles west of modern-day Marshall.
Oak Hill
According to “Maps and Notes of Upper Fauquier County, Virginia,” Thomas Marshall purchased this 1,824-acre property from Thomas Turner in 1772. In 1773, he built the first, smaller structure at Oak Hill.
John lived at Oak Hill until 1775, when, at age 20, he joined the Continental Army as one of the Culpeper Minutemen. During the winter of 1777-78, he was stationed at Valley Forge.
Following the war, John returned to the College of William & Mary to study law from May to July 1780 before being admitted to the Virginia Bar. He practiced law in Warrenton and served in the Virginia General Assembly from Fauquier. In 1781 he retired from the Continental Army, and in 1782, was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates for the first time.
On January 3, 1783, he married Mary Willis “Polly” Ambler. The couple moved to Richmond and had 10 children together, six of whom survived to adulthood. Though John lived mostly in his 1790-built home in Richmond after his marriage to Polly, he still “maintained an active interest in his county home,” at Oak Hill, according to a National Register of Historic Places inventory-nomination form. In 1802, he would take ownership of Oak Hill following his father’s death.
In 1818, John built a second house on the Oak Hill property for his eldest son, Thomas C. Marshall. According to historians T. Triplett Russell and John K. Gott, the property is a rare example of a Fauquier County farmhouse of the Colonial period, left virtually unaltered. The second house was constructed in the sophisticated temple form of the Federal period and is much larger. Both buildings retain much of their original, finely detailed woodwork.
Enslaved labor maintained Oak Hill’s operations as a working farm. In addition to the white members of the household, 48 enslaved people lived and worked at Oak Hill, according to the 1820 federal census.
John Marshall died on July 6, 1835, four years after his wife’s passing and just days after the death of his son, who was killed in an accident while traveling to be at his side. Thomas C. Marshall is buried in the Marshall Cemetery behind the house at Oak Hill, while John is buried next to Polly in Richmond’s Shockoe Hill Cemetery.
John’s most important legacy was in his role as chief justice, spending over three decades shaping the power of the judiciary branch. Many of the best-known and far-reaching cases in American history took place in his court: Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the precedent of judicial review, while McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) introduced the concept of Congress holding implied powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. These decisions continue to influence Supreme Court rulings to this day, and John would be remembered as the greatest interpreter of the Constitution of the United States. John’s judicial duties kept him in Washington only a few months of the year, and he spent the remaining time in Richmond or at Oak Hill.
Oak Hill After the Marshalls
Oak Hill remained in the Marshall family until the 1860s. In the late 19th century, F.W. Maddux owned the property, and in 1914, it was sold to attorney Alvin Baird. Baird made several structural changes, like adding columns to the front of the 1818 structure. Historic black-and-white photos of fox hunts on the property show Oak Hill with front columns, which Baird removed when he discovered the original house did not have any.
Foxhunting was popular at Oak Hill. A noteworthy member of the nearby Cobbler Hunt was General George S. Patton, who became Master of Fox Hounds in 1932 while stationed at Fort Myer in Washington, D.C. In 1965, Morris Marks acquired the property and maintained it as a working farm. Oak Hill was added to the Virginia and National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and is now a Journey Through Hallowed Ground historic site.
Today, Chuck Chamberlain owns Oak Hill, which he purchased in 1998. “Oak Hill is now in transition,” he shares. “The historic structures have been stabilized and a nonprofit has been created.” The American Heritage Foundation’s American Law Memorial at Oak Hill was established to promote an awareness of the past, present, and future role of law in defining and defending the United States.
The property had been split up and sold as single parcels when Chamberlain was in the market. “I wanted the middle section, the historic section, which is in between two vineyards,” he recalls. To the west of Oak Hill is Blue Valley Vineyard and Winery, and to its east is Barrel Oak Winery & Brewery. The original owner of Barrel Oak planted rows of Norton grapes, a varietal native to Virginia, on Oak Hill’s frontal acreage, which continue to grow today.
Chamberlain hopes the historic property will inspire the education of future generations. “Things from the past help ground us and envision what was there before, what people went through, the struggles, the hardships,” he said. He imagines most of this history being provided virtually through a web presence, with possible limited tours by appointment in the future.
When asked why he bought it, Chamberlain admits, “Probably temporary insanity. I couldn’t believe something like this was for sale.”
He finishes, “We have memorials to wars and historical figures, and I thought, what memorial is devoted to law? I was thinking about what makes a good judge. And I thought of Marshall.” ML
Oak Hill is located at 9400 Justice Lane in Delaplane. For more information on the American Law Memorial at Oak Hill, visit 1773.us.
Published in the March 2025 issue of Middleburg Life.