James Markham Marshall, builder of "Happy Creek House", was one of the most distinguished Americans of his day, a Revolutionary hero, lawyer, diplomat, land speculator, and aristocrat of the old Southern plantation regime. As a young lieutenant in Alexander Hamilton's regiment of the Continental Army, James Marshall led what was called "the forlorn hope" in an attack upon the fort in the siege of Yorktown. After the war, he spent a few years in Kentucky, highlighted by a duel which he fought with James Brown, later U.S. Minister to France and Senator from Louisiana. In 1795, James Marshall married Hester Morris, daughter of Robert Morris, the "Financier of the Revolution." Soon after his marriage, James Marshall was sent by President Washington to France as Minister Plenipotentiary to negotiate the release of Lafayette from an Austrian prison, and history credits him with a successful mission. While in Paris, Mr. Marshall witnessed the outrages of the Reign of Terror, and when Marie Antionette's fabulous furnishings at Versailles were sold at public auction, he bought a luxurious wall-to-wall carpet and a handsome mahogany Pembroke table for his "Happy Creek House." The rug was lost when the house burned, but the table was saved and remains in the family. Marshall remained abroad for two years as agent of the North American Land Company which was developing extensive properties in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. Mrs. Marshall had accompanied him, and their two eldest sons were born during this period. As this patriotic American couple did not wish their children to be born on English soil, arrangement were made for the events to take place on an American ship in the English harbor. While in England, James Marshall bought from the heirs of Lord Fairfax some 180,000 acres of the vast Northern Neck Proprietary of Virginia. This purchase was made in his own name and in those of his brother, Chief Justice John Marshall, Rawleigh Colson, and "Light Horse" Harry Lee. He later bought out Lee, and with a double portion of the lands thus acquired, he became a large proprietor and a wealthy Virginia gentleman. He practiced law in Winchester, attaining eminence in that profession, and established his home on his Happy Creek lands. Here he built his spacious 16 room mansion of native limestone with wide halls, lofty ceilings, windows 18 feet high, and a magnificent stairway. There were separate utility buildings and quarters for his servants and tenants, all of limestone like the main house. An English gardener attended beautiful flower beds and the vegetable garden which featured the asparagus bed so prized by the nineteenth century Virginia planter. Cut flowers were assured the year around by a "sunken flower pit", rock-walled and glazed over the top, in which even Marechal Niel roses bloomed in winter. The front lawn was laid off in a sweeping semi-circle outlined by a stone wall flanked with lilacs, hollyhocks, and white mulberry trees. Provided by Ann Stoddard