A career guided and governed by the highest principles of citizenship has been that of Elmer E. MARSHALL, who though a native of Wayne county, Indiana, has been a resident of Reno county for over forty years. He was born on January 9, 1868, and is the son of Isaac and Carlotta (PAXTON) MARSHALL. His mother, who was born near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 12, 1832, followed the customs of living adopted by the Quakers, and came to Indiana in 1843 with her parents, who were also Quakers. The family drove into the Middle West in a covered wagon and encountered many strange and interesting adventures on the trip. They settled in Wayne county, Indiana, where Mr. PAXTON bought a farm and where he lived with his family until his death.

Isaac MARSHALL, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Wayne county, Indiana, on October 22, 1832, and received his education in the schools of the county in which he was born. He was married in 1855, but on account of the Civil War, which started a few years later he was obliged to break his home interests and give his services to save the Union. He enlisted in the Sixty-ninth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and during three years and nine months of the war gave active service. He fought at Vicksburg and at Shiloh and in the battle of Chattanooga had a prominent part. At the siege of Mobile and at Indianola he received some of his most interesting experiences of the war and at the close returned to Wayne county, Indiana, worse in health for his services. Upon returning to the place of his nativity he rented a farm belonging to David LITTLE, a Quaker, and in 1872, moved with his family to a farm near Topeka, Kansas. The following year he obtained a homestead claim on a farm in Little River township, Reno county, Kansas. The land grant was located in the southwestern part of section 26, township 22, range 4 west, and remained the family homestead until the death of Mr. MARSHALL, which occurred in November, 1910. After the death of Mrs. MARSHELL, who passed away in November, 1900, Mr. MARSHALL married for the second time. Elmer MARSHALL has two brothers: Joseph, who resides on a farm in Clay township, Reno county, and Isaac, who follows the occupation of a farmer in Oakwood, Oklahoma.

When he was just five years of age, Elmer E. MARSHALL came with his parents to Reno county, Kansas. He attended the Lakeside district school in Little River township and in his youth had fellowship with labor. He lived on his father's farm until his marriage, which took place in 1886, and after which he went to Gray county, Kansas, to take a homestead claim. After living upon the land for the time required to complete his claim he sold out and returned to Reno county, where he rented his father's farm, consisting of three hundred and twenty acres. In 1900 he moved to Clay township, where he bought a fruit farm of twenty-nine acres, and where ten years later he erected a house of modern construction and attractive design. After a year spent in traveling through the West, Mr. MARSHALL returned to this county and bought a home at 125 Fifteenth avenue, West, in Hutchinson, where he continues to reside. He takes an active interest in the social affairs of the community in which he lives and is a popular member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

On October 10, 1866, Elmer E. MARSHALL was married to Emma Gray HOLCOMB, a native of Mt. Ayr, Ringgold county, Iowa, and the daughter of Allen and Roxana HOLCOMB, numbered among the pioneer settlers of Iowa, who moved to Denison, Texas, and later homesteaded in Woodward county, Oklahoma, where Mrs. HOLCOMB died, March 18, 1907. Two of the children born to Mr. and Mrs. MARSHALL died in infancy, they were, Walter and Jrvin. Roxana, the second child, became the wife of Sherman GILKISON, in 1913, and has one child, Marshall Gray GILKISON, who was born on August 22, 1915. The family resides on the farm owned by Elmer E. MARSHALL, in Clay township, this county.

Mrs. Roxana HOLCOMB, wife of Allen HOLCOMB, who died in 1870, married R. I. McMAINES in 1872. Her people were from Virginia and North Carolina. She was a cousin of E. C. MARSHALL, once a United States senator from Mississippi, and cousin of Vice-President MARSHALL.

SOURCE: PLOUGHE, Sheridan. History of Reno County, Kansas: Its People, Industries, and Institutions Vol. II. Pp. 657-688. B.F. Bowen & Co. Indianapolis. 1917.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, June of 2009