Marsha, I will attempt to answer your question as best I can due to space limitations.   John Marshall "of the forest" was the son of Thomas Marshall (died 1704 in Westmoreland Co., VA) and Martha Sherwood as proved by the following: Westmoreland Co., Va. By indentures dated 23 and 24 October 1727, William Marshall, planter, of King and Queen County and Elizabeth his wife, conveyed to his brother John Marshall the 200 acre plantation in Washington Parish, Westmoreland County, which had been bequeathed to the grantor by the will of their father, Thomas Marshall, dec'd, and acknowledged in court by John Wright on 28 May 1707 to the said Thomas Marshall and his heirs. Probate: 31 MAY 1704 Westmoreland County, Virginia We believe John Marshall "of the forest" also had sisters Mary who married John Piper and Sarah who married Robert Frank, Jr. (I believe I'm a descendant of Sarah Marshall & Robert Frank, Jr. although still looking for better documentation to support my theory).  John Marshall "of the forest," is mentioned in the following excerpt from a biography of his grandson, Chief Justice John Marshall: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/johnmarshall.htm John Marshall's parents were typical of many young couples in colonial America. His paternal ancestors were Welsh artisans who came to Virginia sometime in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. His father was the son of another John Marshall, a small planter who struggled to make a living on two hundred acres of low, marshy land cut from the wilderness along a minor tributary of the Potomac. That John Marshall was known to his prosperous neighbors as "John of the forest," a pejorative term used by tidewater aristocracy to describe someone less affluent who lived in the woods.(9) In In 1722 he married Elizabeth Markham, the younger daughter of a prosperous merchant from Alexandria, Virginia,(10) and together they had six children, Thomas being the eldest. Nothing definite is known about the parents of "John of the forest," and all efforts to chart the chief justice's paternal heritage beyond the second generation have ended in genealogical quicksand. Marshall himself never traced his parentage beyond his grandfather.(11) You can also refer to Mike Marshall's site for more information: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=mrmarsha&id=I04768 ________________________________ From: marsha moses <mosesm@earthlink.net> To: va-northern-neck@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, November 23, 2012 4:00 PM Subject: [VA-NORTHERN-NECK] Marshall Who is John "of the Forest" Marshall and Elizabeth "Lizzy" Markham? 

David, This makes a nice story except it doesn't hold much water. Two things stand out (1) land "in the forest" was inland and not nearly as swampy as land along the river. Depends of course on WHERE inland it was. Nomini Forest could be both inland and on swampy water. (2) Over in Lancaster, Joseph-2 Ball was seated in "the Forest" (now called Epping Forest) and he was certainly not someone who would have been called such a thing in preparative manner. Craig On Nov 24, 2012, at 2:48 PM, DAVID BROWN wrote: > John Marshall's parents were typical of many young couples in colonial America. His paternal ancestors were Welsh artisans who came to Virginia sometime in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. His father was the son of another John Marshall, a small planter who struggled to make a living on two hundred acres of low, marshy land cut from the wilderness along a minor tributary of the Potomac. That John Marshall was known to his prosperous neighbors as "John of the forest," a pejorative term used by tidewater aristocracy to describe someone less affluent who lived in the woods