California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


ADONIRAM J. MARSHALL is one of the men who after a long and active career have gained ample 
material prosperity and financial independence by their operations as farmers and business men in 
Ventura County, and is now living retired and enjoying the fruits of his well spent years at Santa Paula. 
He was born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, August 30, 1851, a son of Joseph and Jane Marshall, and 
grew up in his native state and attended the public schools there until he was eighteen years of age. 
After that he submitted himself to the rugged discipline of the old farm until he was twenty-three. On 
leaving home he went to Mansfield, Ohio, and continued working as a farm laborer in that vicinity 
several years.  
 
In April, 1876, Mr. Marshall arrived in Ventura County. Though conditions were very different here 
from what they had been in the states where he had previously lived he found his industry and 
previous experience available to him as a worker on various farms, and he continued in that way in the 
Pleasant Valley until 1889. In that year he went to Ventura, rented some land near that city, and 
engaged in bean raising. In 1893 came his removal to the Santa Clara Valley where he rented land in 
Adams Canyon, and farmed it four years. His next location was in Saugas in Los Angeles County, where 
he combined farming and mining for fifteen months. On returning to Ventura County Mr. Marshall 
rented fifty acres three miles east of Santa Paula. Four years later he bought 160 acres in the same 
locality and devoted it to the raising of stock and barley. Subsequently he bought the fifty acres he 
occupied as a renter, and continued his activities until 1911, when he sold his farm and used a portion 
of the proceeds in the purchase of 2 1/2 acres and a comfortable home at Santa Paula, where he now 
lives retired.  
 
Mr. Marshall is a republican and attends the Presbyterian Church. In Ventura September 9, 1891, he 
married Miss Ada McDonald, a native of Pennsylvania and a daughter of W. B. H. McDonald, who came 
to Ventura County in 1886. He was a farmer by occupation and was well known in Ventura County. Mr. 
Marshall was a member of the Dayton militia, Pennsylvania National Guard, from 1871 to 1873.