Margaret Marshall: The Maiden of Mystery

 JANUARY 13, 2021

Week 2: Family Legend

 

It seems nearly every family in America boasts about the Cherokee Indian princess in the tree. And my family is pretty much no exception. Ours may not have been a princess, or even full blooded, and maybe not even Cherokee, but the family legend took hold nonetheless.

 

We had a family portrait that was passed down to my maternal grandmother, Edna (Dean) Millhouse. The portrait, seen below, featured John A. Dean and his wife Margaret Marshall seated in the center, along with six of their grown children.

John A. Dean and Margaret (Marshall) Dean and children portrait, West Virginia, circa 1895.

My grandmother coupled the portrait with this typed family bio and jotted a note at the bottom:

 

“Our Great Grand father, John Dean (Picture) married to Margaret Marshel who was half Indian.”

Edna Arlene (Dean) Millhouse, John Dean family details - typed with her handwritten notes, date unknown, privately held by granddaughter Kira D. Foltz.

That was the only piece of written source material I had ever seen that gave any indication to Margaret’s origins. Strangely enough, our family had no inkling as to who Margaret’s parents were, and several investigations into the Marshall surname in Virginia around the early 1830s, when she was born, was not returning any fruitful candidates for a father. Also, I found no relevant subjects on the Dawes Rolls (annual Indian census enumerations). Other than that, my grandmother and some of her sisters had mentioned casually in passing that they believed there were family ties to the Cherokee tribe, but I never found that in writing anywhere.

 

When consumer DNA testing sprung onto the scene, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to validate our family’s story. Instead, it was a myth buster! I know most people would be completely bummed out if their ethnicity results blew up an oral story passed down through the generations, but this wasn’t how I handled the news. The zero percent Native American DNA on my chart just became another piece to the mysterious puzzle. Besides, Marshall never sounded like a Native American surname anyway, so I always had my suspicions.

 

In the late 2000s, I attended the Genealogy Jamboree, where I sat in on a talk by genealogist, Janice Lovelace, PhD, on Native American ancestry and research. She gave a really intriguing reason as to why this particular legend haunts so many family trees! She explained, that as America grew and flourished as a melting pot of different cultures and immigrants from all over the world, the question became, what makes a person truly American? Over time, a larger stigma was placed on the immigrants who were “fresh off the boat,” and if you could prove that you had deep roots in the United States, or better yet, the colonies or prior, then your family held more prestige. Because Native Americans were ultimately the first people on the North American continent, it became trendy to be able to trace back your ancestry to a native tribe. And, hey, if you were descended from a princess, even better! Essentially, it was the American version of being related to royalty.

 

But if Margaret didn’t pass down any Native American DNA to her descendants and wasn’t half-Indian, or even any percent Indian, then why or how did this rumor get started? If just to bolster our family’s stake in America, why not claim she was a Cherokee princess? Why was it so specific to her being half-Indian? That seems like a failed attempt at a good family legend!

 

That’s what sparked my interest even further. I had to figure out what made Margaret special. The easiest way to clear things up would be to finally discover who her parents were! I began browsing for Marshalls in the early 1800s again. I ran across one couple, Hezekiah and Atha, who were in the right place at the right time and happened to have a daughter named Margaret who was of the right age. After perusing family trees belonging to Hezekiah’s descendants, I stumbled upon one that stood out from the rest. I reached out to the tree’s owner, who was related to Hezekiah by way of his son, Alexander B. Marshall.

 

She was unaware of any sister to Alexander named Margaret, however, I explained the censuses I found for Hezekiah and Atha listing Margaret as a daughter, and the fact that their Margaret disappears from their household when my Margaret shows up as a married woman in a household with husband John A. Dean. Luckily, not too soon after, she had her DNA tested and sure enough, we were a match! DNA came to the rescue again. It was right around this same time I also noticed that Margaret had named her daughter Atha! For some reason, I had not recognized the naming pattern previously, but this sealed the deal for me. Margaret’s parents were certainly Hezekiah and Atha Marshall.

 

The question remained. Could one of these two be Native American, even though DNA basically proved otherwise? While researching the couple, I found a Revolutionary War pension and bounty land warrant application filed by Hezekiah’s widow. Because she was unable to write, a scribe took down her story and account of Hezekiah’s war service. He recorded her name as Athe, rather than the later generational spelling of Atha. The most intriguing part of the document was the role Atha claimed her husband played in the fight against the British. She stated his job in the war as an Indian spy!

Revolutionary War pension application for Athe Marshall, 1855, Virginia; U.S., Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900 [database on-line], Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 13 January 2021) Provo, UT, USA; Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files (NARA microfilm publication M804, 2,670 rolls). Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15. National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Nothing could have been more exciting to read off of those pages! For me, this was just the tidbit of info I needed to make sense of the family legend. My rationale is that Hezekiah’s job as a spy amongst the Indians must have been misinterpreted in a game of telephone through the ranks of our family. Rather than Margaret’s father being an Indian spy, instead, he was rumored to have been Indian, therefore, making her half-Indian. It’s also quite possible he could have even been able to pass as an Indian, as I have no record of his complexion or physical characteristics. Either way, this explanation satisfied my curiosity.

 

I made these discoveries a few years ago. However, within the past year, even more exciting news about this branch’s origins came to light! And once again, DNA unlocked some of the clues, but there was also a hint in one of Hezekiah’s records that I had previously overlooked.

 

In 1820, at the age of 57, Hezekiah’s household was enumerated as free colored persons. Long story short, it turns out the Marshalls are certainly not of Native American ancestry, but rather, African American ancestry! I was gob-smacked. These are the types of tales I live for when it comes to genealogy; the stories that somehow get lost over generations, just to be rediscovered some 100 years later. But that history was not a part of the family legend, so that tale will need to be told another day!

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