Marshall University - Chief Justice Yearbook (Huntington, WV)

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hi 1867, three years tifler being auctioned, the new ita e added Marshall was now the State Sonnal Si bool in a new state a three story budding and tower to the original structures. created out of the issues of the U ar. 7tt t%43 7 747driven 7 tcf TZciiCcUtty . , , The next eighteen years were a quiet time of steady pace for me. I didn’t know that my work was being watched. Consequently, 1 was completely surprised when my guardians presented me with a large, fine, three-story brick wing. True, because money was scarce, only the first floor was furnished and that as a chapel and church—nevertheless. I was growing again. I had come lar and knew that 1 was rather an imposing sight in the midst of the surrounding farmlands. Yes, 1 had come far but 1 little dreamed of the great honor which in two short years befell me. In 18 58, the General Assembly of Virginia made me a COLLEGE! Imagine, from a log cabin to a college in twenty years. Honor beyond belief and yet 1 regret to say I was not completely satisfied—not quite. I wanted a city around me as other colleges had. That year I had a faculty of four, and twenty students. One can see, looking back, that I had attained dignity and authority, hut these, alas, could not save me from the hard times that followed. 6

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7 'SeyOK m a TjJittdiUvefet 'Kttoit (halted 7Ht. '%e fi ut I've seen and done a lot of growing myself and I know that one of the chief concerns of the westward moving pioneers was the establishment of schools. Indeed, that concern established me nearly one hundred and thirty years ago—one hundred and thirty years! That takes one back. In fact, I don't know exactly when my life did begin. An early family record attests that a girl born in 1821 became one of my pupils, so I must have come into being around that time too. As to where I had my beginning, history relates that in 1772 Governor Dinwiddic of Virginia gave to a certain John Savage and sixty other revolutionary soldiers a tract of land up and down the Ohio. Thereafter the land was known as the Savage Grant. Savage was an apt name. It was Indian territory and even as late as 1796 Indians murdered and scalped the early settlers and burned their homes. At any rate, in the midst of this wilderness 1 came, humbly enough, into being—a one-room log cabin on a beech-forested windswept knoll by the broad Ohio, Mt. Hebron in the Savage Grant, and across the river was the site of an Indian village. I was both church and school — my first pupils, settlers' children. Ijic Lincoln, Marsh,til bad its beginning m . rustic log structure—nIJ II . Hebron Church .it HolJcrby’s Landing. This was my beginning and my tale might well have ended here but for an act of the Virginia Assembly of 1838 which chose me as an academy to train teachers for western Virginia. I was very proud—but a one-room log cabin an academy? The good founding fathers appointed by the assembly took care of that. They built four rooms for me, one of which was set aside for the Methodists’ and Presbyterians’ use on alternate Sundays; they added an assistant to my faculty of one, and they approved the name chosen for me by John Laidlcy, leader among my founders. I was to be called Marshall Academy in honor of Virginia’s great chief justice of the Supreme Court. Last, but in my opinion not least because it gave me a feeling of permanence, they dug a well. Yes, I was very proud. 5 KV

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A jar (t) from today's modern look—but these tutilities still persist. I be Hand, the old Blue and Blaek” baseball team, chemical experiments, and the Marshall military unit all at the turn of the century. 'D xa% Weie @l Med Td wt Sfilit t e @OMKtwf . • . I suppose the first faint tremors of the war that nearly split the country were reaching me. At any rate, in 1X59, 1 twice just escaped being sold for debts! Next year, my president resigned because the trustees who were my guardians could not raise funds to pay his salary. My next two presidents served a short time hut the last resigned to join the Union Army. My doors were closed. I cannot say that I was not hurt. I was glad to be of service as a hospital during the Civil War, but I had been so proud to lx Marshall College. As the war drew towards its,close. I hoped that somehow 1 might be restored to my former dignity. But what seemed the end was close and my faint hope short-lived. In 1804, shortly before the end of the war, I was sold .at a public auction for $1 500. The family that bought me moves! in. servants and all. They were 4 J nice enough people, and two of the sisters taught school, but I was far from my former proud position. I low could I ever be a college again? 7