Marshall was a lumberman who was in business with his father-in-law, John Rumbarger.  Together, their families moved away from the Parker area to the deep, virgin forests of Washington Township, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, in the mid to late 1850s; and in this region these two families made their homes in and near various lumber camps until the Marshalls built a home at Cool Spring Hollow (East Main Street at Beech Street) in Reynoldsville, in the late 1870s.  [The Rumbargers had established their home in “Rumbarger Town”--now the city of DuBois--in nearby Clearfield County in the mid-1860s.]   Ten of the twelve Marshall children were born in this region, with only the oldest two having been born near Parker, but in Butler County. 

Family members lived in this Reynoldsville home until the parents died in 1911 and 1924 respectively.  William's parents back in Parker had been Presbyterian, following the Reformed Christian tradition of the  Trubys of Greensburg.  But Anna Mary Rumbarger was Methodist, and this couple became part of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Reynoldsville.  In the 1850 Census, prior to his marriage, Marshall is listed as a farmer; and from 1860-1900, census records note his occupation as “laborer.”   [Add: W. K. Marshall's fraternal associations; AMRM's quilting and needlework]

Oral traditions hint that the family dealt regularly with "hard times"--and having twelve children, with no inheritance from either father, and family stories of business deals gone bad all indicate to us the accuracy of this memory.  Stephen Foster's popular 19th-century ballad, Hard Times, Come Again No More, must have resonated with them through the decades of their lives.  Their granddaughter, Laura Heffner Wilson, recalled her grandparents being, nonetheless, happy.

The move away from their Marshall, Robinson and Truby kin in the Parker area rooted this branch of our family in Jefferson County--two counties to the east.  This distance is now a short and easy drive on Interstate 80.  They did maintain contact over the years, and the memory of family in Parker remained alive long enough for their granddaughter, Laura Heffner Wilson , to connect me with her distant cousin in Parker, florist Charlotte Turk Dean, in the mid-1970s.  We surely could have followed the paper trail from Reynoldsville back to Parker; but this family memory about geographic roots--which lasted 120 years--allowed the connection between these branches of our large family to become once again a person to person connection for us in the 21^st century.    

My best, present knowledge shows that all living descendants of John and Catharina Marshall who were born Marshalls descend from William Kelker Marshall and his wife Anna Mary Rumbarger of Reynoldsville.

Click on underlined words, above, for more information.