Picture Chief Justice John Marshall's Federal-style brick home here in Richmond, Virginia. This historic house museum and National Historic Landmark was built in 1790 and became the long-time home of Chief Justice of the United States and Founding Father John Marshall. Appointed to the court in 1801 by President John Adams, Marshall lived here for the rest of his life and wrote such influential decisions as Marbury v.
Madison (1803) and McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). He and his wife Mary Willis Ambler Marshall, known within the family as Polly, raised six children in this Federal-style brick house and he remained here until his death in 1835.
On the first floor you can picture the dining room, the parlor, and the large parlor/dining room; upstairs are the three bedchambers. The house originally stood with outbuildings — a law office, kitchen, laundry, and stables — and occupied a full city block in Richmond’s fashionable Court End residential neighborhood. Neighbors included the attorney John Wickham, who defended Aaron Burr in Burr’s infamous treason trial.
John Marshall’s account books even show he began to make payments for the purchase of the property. Picture this block once holding the outbuildings and neighbors that clustered around it: a law office, kitchen, laundry, and stables.