Source – Entry #180 in Paxton’s Marshall Family
(written circa. 1885)
(written circa. 1885)
Note: this entry describes the mother and half sister of Paxton
who wrote the Marshall Family
Mary Keith Marshall, b. at Washington,Ky.,January 13, 1797, yet living,= 1st, March 1, 1825, JAMES A. PAXTON (244), who d. October 25, 1825; =2d, January 29, 1835, at Frankfort, Ky., Judge John Green, b. in Virginia, January 4, 1786, d. at “Waveland,” near Danville, Ky., September 30, 1838.
My step-mother was reared at Washington, Ky., in its golden age. Perhaps no town in the West possessed a more literary and enlightened population, than was found in Washington the early part of this century. I have known no female that surpassed my step mother in intelligence, knowledge, vivacity and spirit. Her energy was a passion; her versatility was taken for frenzy, and her animation suggested insanity. She sought excitement, moved from place to place, read every new book that came out, was ardent in her piety, enlightened in her views, and could maintain her sentiments against jurists, statesmen and theologians. Upon her marriage with my father, she went with him to Columbus, Ohio:
But while on a visit to Kentucky, my father died in: the old drawing-room on “The Hill,” and in the graveyard there, he lies buried. One child, Mary F. E. Paxton, was the fruit of the marriage. She was the widowed mother’s pride and darling, her joy and hope. But the little one, when three years old, wasted and died, and the mother was disconsolate. Its remains lie beside its father’s, and its epitaph reads: “Born December 19, 1825, died April 18, 1829. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”