Elmer D. Marshall, Man of Business

Due to a wonderful synchronicity, I own two cabinet card portraits of Elmer Daniel Marshall, late-Victorian and Edwardian man of business. I was contacted by a photo seller who found the image above on Elmer’s Find A Grave memorial after I had placed it there. He offered me a younger image of Marshall, below, which I purchased to keep them together.

Elmer was born 3 July, 1862, in Nashua, New Hampshire, the son of Daniel Robinson Marshall, born 18 March, 1821, in Windham, New Hampshire, and his wife Roxanna R. Morse, of Wilton, New Hampshire, born 25 January, 1824. She was the daughter of Ephrem Morse and Lois Hackett, both of Wilton.

His paternal grandparents were Samson Marshall (3 April, 1786-28 May, 1845), a watchman, and his wife Margaret Davidson (1794-9 Feb., 1877); his great-grandfather was Nathaniel, son of Richard and Ruth Marshall, who married Hannah Marsh in 1788. She was born at Nottingham West, New Hampshire, 22 July, 1757.

Daniel Marshall, who was then a butcher, and Roxanna Morse married before 1850. It appears the couple’s firstborn was a boy named Charles, who died before the 1850 census was taken. In that year, the couple was enumerated with a five-month-old daughter, Harriet L., who died before the next census in 1860. In that year, the Marshalls lived with Daniel’s mother Margaret and a daughter, Carrie G. (b. December 1858), who died only a few months later in August. Today, in Nashua’s Woodlawn Cemetery, where several generations of Marshalls are interred, there is a row of three tiny stones—the only trace of Elmer’s lost siblings.

(A curious aside: Daniel Marshall’s occupation in 1860 was noted by the census taker as “man.”)

In 1861, at age 40, Daniel Marshall dutifully registered for to serve as a Union soldier, but was never called up.

Daniel was 41 when his only surviving child, Elmer, was born in the summer of 1862. At the time of the 1870 Census, Daniel was a real-estate dealer; by 1880, he had again radically changed professions and was a deputy sheriff. Daniel Marshall died of heart disease, aged 72, 29 September, 1893. He is buried at Woodlawn.

Elmer was married 5 August, 1886, to Nettie Agnes Flagg (November 1864-11 March, 1951), daughter of Hollis, New Hampshire, farmer Henry A. Flagg (b. 1821) and his wife Adeline Wheeler. Three children were born to Elmer and Nettie: Roy Flagg Marshall (15 April, 1888-29 Jan., 1961); Paul Hackett Marshall (21 November, 1889-11 Sept., 1972), and Evelyn Lucile Marshall (21 August 1897-28 Dec., 1989).

The 1900 Census reveals that Elmer was a wholesale grocer who lived with his mother, his wife, and their children. Two years earlier, an 1898 Nashua directory listed Elmer and a cousin, John Otis Marshall (17 Sept., 1840-22 Feb., 1902), as the proprietors of the Marshall Grocery Company located at 11 and 12 Railroad Square. A Nashua Telegraph article of 29 April, 1959, gives some background on the business: “In 1865, John and Caleb Marshall opened the first wholesale grocery business in the eastern half of the old building…on Railroad Square. In 1893, Caleb left his brother to establish a similar business on Franklin Street…. Elmer D. Marshall joined John in 1893 and continued the business as the Marshall Grocery Company until [John retired] and the Holbrook brothers bought John’s interest.”

The rechristened Holbrook-Marshall Company opened in mid-May 1906, but less than a year later the trade publication Flour and Feed reported that the building “collapsed, with considerable damage,” but did not give the cause. In 1911, the Telegraph noted that Elmer had become a member of the board of the Nashua Hospital Association. In early 1912, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Foods reported, “Ninety barrels of vinegar in the possession of the Holbrook Marshall Grocery Company of Nashua, N. H., were seized by pure food inspectors because of misbranding.” Otherwise, it was a sterling and prosperous company. A piece of surviving ephemera proclaims it a wholesaler of groceries and flour, as well as a jobber of pork and lard, and a coffee roaster.

Elmer and Nettie’s son Roy married 18 June, 1913, to Kittie Gladys Grover (1889-1988). A son, Lewis R. Marshall, was born in 1917, then, in a twist of fate, on 8 August, 1914, Elmer’s second grandchild, Gladys Shirley, was born the same day his mother Roxanna died at age 90 years, six months, and 11 days. On Roxanna’s death record, the cause was listed simply as “old age.” She was laid to rest in Woodlawn with the husband she had outlived by more than two decades. Crushingly, little Gladys followed her great-grandmother 16 August, 1918, dying at age 4 after an operation on a ruptured appendix. The little girl lies buried with her family in Edgewood Cemetery, Nashua.

After Gladys’s death, Roy and Kittie would have five more children, some of whom are still living today. His World War I registration card describes him as tall and slender, with blue eyes and dark brown hair. In April 1942, he also registered for the World War II draft. In that record, his height was logged at 5’11”, his complexion fair, and his hair grey.

Roy, and presumably both his siblings, graduated from Nashua High School. He went on to New York City’s Packard business College, earning his degree in 1907. After his father retired from Holbrook-Marshall, Roy succeeded him as president and treasurer until his own retirement in 1946. He died in Nashua in January 1961 and is interred at Edgewood. His obituary notes that at the time of his death, Roy had 18 grand-children, so there are many descendants of Elmer Marshall alive today to stumble across this article.

On 25 June, 1913, Elmer and Kittie’s son Paul wed Marcia May Barnes (1891–1981) at the home of the bride’s parents in Litchfield, New Hampshire. The couple had one son, Warren Elmer Marshall, born in 1914.

In 1917, Paul registered for the World War I draft and was described as 5’6″ and of a medium build with brown hair and blue eyes. He was also noted as suffering “nasal trouble.” He did not serve in the war, but went on to spend his early career in the Holbrook-Marshall Company. By 1930, however, he altered his course to become an insurance salesman. In 1935, Paul and his family removed to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he continued in the same field. In the 1940s, he became a Mason at Worcester’s Rose of Sharon Lodge, and the 6 July, 1963, issue of the Telegraph reported on Paul and Marsha’s golden wedding anniversary in Worcester, which was attended by his brother Roy and many other family members from New Hampshire. Paul Marshall died in Boylston, Massachusetts, 11 September, 1972. He is buried in Edgewood Cemetery, Nashua.

Paul’s son Warren married thrice, and with his third wife, Marie Teresa Madden (1910-1981), had five children. Warren passed away 11 March, 2004, in Falmouth, Massachusetts. He and his wife are buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.

“Miss Marshall and Holbrook were rushed to Memorial Hospital and late last night, the condition of Miss Marshall was considered serious.”

On 8 July, 1926, daughter Evelyn Marshall was injured in a dramatic attempt to evade justice by one of her father’s employees. According to the Portsmouth Herald, when confronted by a police inspector over an arrest warrant, “Whitney I. Rushlow backed the big limousine he was driving against a pole. [This] threw Inspector Fletcher against a post, severely injuring him, smashed his car and injured Miss Evelyn Marshall and E. S. Holbrook, passengers in the machine. Miss Marshall and Holbrook were rushed to Memorial Hospital and late last night, the condition of Miss Marshall was considered serious. Rushlow is the chauffeur for E. D. Marshall of the Holbrook-Marshall Wholesale Grocery Co. and was seated in the car in front of the warehouse awaiting Mr. Marshall when the police approached….” Evelyn survived her injuries and I can find no further mention of the incident in local news.

Elmer’s daughter never married, appears never to have had a profession, served as her mother’s executrix in 1951, and after her own death in late December 1989, was buried with her parents in Woodlawn Cemetery.

“No matter what time we went to school or came home, he invariably could be found at that desk.”

A 1922 passenger record exists for Elmer Marshall, at age 62, entering the port of New York on the S.S. Orca. He was traveling alone and listed his address as 22 Berkley Street, Nashua—a nine-room house, built in 1900, that is still standing and occupied today.

In January 1926, the Telegraph reported that he had been reelected an officer of Indian Head National Bank. He made his last census appearance in 1930 with his wife and 32-year-old daughter. He died 5 October, 1935, of a coronary occlusion after almost a decade of myocarditis. A brief obituary appeared in New England papers, stating that he died at home and had been, at the time of his passing, the treasurer of the Holbrook-Marshall Company of Keene and Nashua, New Hampshire.

An article in the Nashua Telegraph of 1 February, 1961, remembered, “The Holbrook-Marshall Company on East Hollis Street, back forty years or so ago, was the largest wholesale grocery firm in New England, we would venture to say. It was a beehive of activity in those days, and we used to be fascinated watching the owner, the late Elmer Marshall, sitting at his desk in the window, He was our idea of a businessman, in those days.” Elmer’s seat at the window was also remarked upon in an earlier 1959 article: “On our way to the junior high school and high school we had to pass that building several times a day and can still picture, sitting at an open desk before an open window [Marshall], a distinguished looking man. No matter what time we went to school or came home, he invariably could be found at that desk.”

Roy is also mentioned in the 1961 Telegraph article, “[Elmer’s] son, Roy Marshall, also occupied the other front office and even then he was heir-apparent to this flourishing business…. All of this is recalled with the death this week of Roy Marshall. The firm, as we recall it, went out of business 20 years or so ago. And we shake our heads to think of the trainload after trainload of grocery goods being moved into their warehouses for distribution in our area each week by this old, established firm.”

Elmer was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery. His wife, Nettie, died in Nashua on 11 March, 1951, as was also buried at Woodlawn. Ω

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Update: In August 2017, I received this correspondence from relative Gail Marshall, which highlights the difficulty that a historian has in resuscitating the lives of strangers—to wit, a lack of family secrets :

“I was thrilled to find information on your page about my Great Grandfather Elmer D. Marshall that included his picture. I too was born on July 3rd. There are however a few incorrect parts in what you published that I would like corrected. My Father, Warren E. Marshall, was the first grandchild of E. D. so he received quite a bit of attention from his grandparents. As a result, my Father spent a great deal of his childhood at 22 Berkley St in Nashua. His time there was not because my grandparents were poor. Paul and Marcia were never poor….

“As with many families, there are tensions and squabbles between members. My Grandfather, Paul, and his older brother, Roy did not get along. So they visited their parents at separate times. My grandparents at one point lived in Manchester, NH. Paul worked for the family business until he went into insurance. Paul then had his own insurance agency in Worcester, MA, until he retired. He then worked at a bank where he had his heart attack which ultimately he passed from.

“There are several reasons for Paul and Roy’s dislike for one another. Based on a comment from my Father, Paul and Kitty liked one another more than just in-laws. E. D. requested that Paul step aside and let Roy court Kitty. Then as was customary the oldest son, in this case, Roy, took over the family business. Once Elmer passed Roy really did not do anything with the family business and let it run into the ground until it had to be closed.”

Thank you, Gail, for providing me with this information. I am glad to add it to the story of Elmer D. Marhsall.