Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

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WILLIAM MARSHALL
 
        One of the most successful horticulturists of the San Gabriel Township 
is the subject of this sketch. His fifteen-acre orange grove is located in the 
Alhambra School District, about one-fourth of a mile west of the San Gabriel 
Mission. He purchased this land from B. D. Wilson in 1875, and in 1876 commenced 
its
improvement and cultivation. Nearly fifteen acres are devoted to seedling 
oranges, 1,000 trees of the Tahite and Sandwich Islands varieties, and about 
five acres to budded trees. He has also 140 deciduous fruit trees, comprising 
the most approved varieties of peaches, apricots, plums, apples, etc. Mr. 
Marshall has kept his place under a high state of cultivation and is liberal in 
the use of fertilizers, and though having an abundant supply of water has not 
used any for irrigation purposes for the past four or five years. His seedling 
trees are in full bearing, and their yield is noticeable. Individual trees have 
yielded twelve or thirteen boxes, and the average yield in 1888 from about ten 
acres of trees was nearly nine boxes per tree. His improvements comprise a neat 
cottage and substantial out-buildings. Mr. Marshall is a native of Ireland, 
dating his birth in Limerick in 1835, the son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Griffin) 
Marshall, natives of that country. When twenty years of age he came to the 
United States and engaged as an apprentice at cabinet-making in New York for 
about eighteen months. His failing health then compelled him to seek an outdoor 
and more active occupation, and he engaged in teaming. In 1857 he located in 
Bloomington, Illinois, and for the next two years was employed in the nurseries 
at that place. In May, 1859, he entered the United States army as a private in 
Light Battery E, Second United States Artillery. He served in that battery until 
honorably discharged at the expiration of his term of enlistment, May 3, 1864. 
His record during the war of the Rebellion is worthy of mention. He participated 
in some of the severest campaigns and hardest-fought battles and sieges of that 
memorable struggle, commencing at Bull Run in 1861. He was through the 
Peninsular and Maryland campaigns of 1862, and at the sieges of Vicksburg arid 
Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1863. His record embraces fourteen of the historic 
battles of the war, beside the exposures of skirmishes, sieges, etc. After his 
discharge he was employed in the Commissary and Quartermaster's Department at 
Washington until the close of the war. For the next three years he was engaged 
in various occupations in New York, and in 1868 came to California, locating at 
San Diego until the fall of that year when he took up his residence in Los 
Angeles. There he engaged in nursery labor until he took up his present 
residence. Mr. Marshall is a practical horticulturist, industrious and energetic 
in his labors. He has made a success of his operations and gained a comfortable 
competency. He is a consistent member and strong supporter of the Catholic 
Church. In politics he is Democratic. In 1877 Mr. Marshall was united in 
marriage with Miss Rebecca Isabella O'Donovan, a native of Limerick County, 
Ireland. No children have blessed this union.
 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California �  Chicago, The Lewis 
Publishing Company, 1889   Page 552
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler