Elihu Marshall was the second of five children born to Francis Marshall and Deborah Bean. He was born on June 30, 1794 in Easton, New York—the same Quaker community where Martin Harris was born. Elihu and his younger brother were the only children in the Marshall family to survive to adulthood. In the 1820s, his brother resided in Junius, New York, approximately forty-six miles from Elihu’s residence in Rochester.
Accident leaves him a “Cripple”
In his youth, Elihu lost the use of his lower limbs following “an unfortunate termination” of a disease: “He was obliged to aid his locomotion by the employment of two crutches, yet he went about under these difficulties, always cheerful, never desponding, and was one of the most genial and pleasant companions to be met with.” Elihu was remembered by those who had dealings with him as “a pleasant and cultured gentleman, one of the old style men of the Society of Friends.”
Elihu founded the Alling and Cory Company
In 1819 at age twenty-five, Elihu founded the Alling and Cory Company, the first privately-owned printing paper and packaging distributorship in Rochester. In a small shop on Carroll Street (now State Street), he became the first paper merchant—a wholesale distributor of office supplies— in the United States.[1]
At its peak of success, the Alling and Cory Company had over twenty branch offices from Toledo, Ohio to New York City. In the 1900s, the Alling and Cory Company was the United States’ oldest privately-owned company in continuous operation. In 1910, the company warehouse in Buffalo, New York was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1999, the company was acquired by the International Paper Company. At that time, most of its original branches had remained open.
Writes and Publishes a Spelling Book for Common Schools
Elihu wrote two books. The first titled—A Spelling Book of the English Language: or The American Tutor’s Assistant; Intended Particularly for the Use of “Common Schools”: The Pronunciation Being Adapted to the Much Approved Principles of J. Walker (1820). The spelling book was wildly successful and is still in print today. (The original book is rare and bound with a wood cover). The wood-cover book is a collector’s item.
The spelling book was endorsed by Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court John Marshall, a cousin of Elihu Marshall. Wanting an even bigger endorsement, Elihu wrote to US President James Madison, a fellow Quaker, on February 23, 1820. The letter reads—
Saratoga Springs 23d. of 2 month 1820.
Friend Madison
I hope thou wilt excuse me for intruding on thee by sending thee a copy of the “American Tutor’s Assistant” and requesting thee to peruse it. I should not perhaps have done it had I not considered that thou art one that feelest interested in the Literature of the United States. Therefore wilt thou be pleased to examine the Book and send me thy sentiments thereon? By complying with the above request thou wilt very much oblige Thine &c
E. F. Marshall
Because of the success of the Elihu Marshall spelling book, it is assumed that the book was used by schoolteacher Oliver Cowdery in Manchester, New York. The book was reprinted in 1827 and 1834.
In 1829, Elihu wrote his second book: The Inquisition and Orthodoxy: Contrasted with Christianity and Religious Liberty (Lockport, NY: E. A. Cooley, 1829).
Elihu seeks Newspaper Partnership with Lyman A. Spalding
In June 1823, Elihu was seeking a partner to start a newspaper in Rochester. He wrote to Lyman A. Spalding of Rochester. Eight letters of Elihu Marshall to Lyman Spalding are housed in the “Lyman A. Spalding Papers” at Cornell University. These letters would have value in the “Mormon” rare documents market because of Elihu’s later connection with Joseph Smith and Martin Harris. The following is a list of the letters:
1. April 11, 1823 written in Rochester and addressed to “Dear Lyman.”
2. November 21, 1823 written in Rochester and addressed to “Dear Lyman.”
3. May 5, 1824 written in Rochester and addressed to “Dear Friend.”
4. May 14, 1824 written in Rochester and addressed to “Dear Friend.”
5. June 5, 1824 written in Rochester and addressed to “Dear Friend.”
6. August 18, 1824 written in Rochester and addressed to “Dear Lyman.”
7. March 1, 1825 written in Rochester and addressed to “Dear Lyman.”
8. April 11, 1825 written in Rochester and addressed to “Dear Lyman.”
The message in the above letters is about business and religion. In the letters, Elihu revealed his feelings about priestcraft in Albany, New York and questioned whether he should express a loud voice in behalf of Quakerism in his newspaper. He was concerned about the private bank in Rochester being unpopular and with “every maneuver being inclined to attack it.” He expressed friendship towards Lyman Spalding and his personal thankfulness for his indulgence and his faith in God and his distrust of the petty ministrations of the Presbyterian clergy. He indicated that a Presbyterian priest frequently calls upon him but has made no end-roads.
Marshall, Spalding & Hunt—Booksellers, Bookbinders, and Printers
In October 1825, the firm of Marshall, Spalding & Hunt was established. According to Rochester historians, the firm became a large printing and publishing house, and from it came the best textbooks and popular works of the day. Working at the firm in their youth was Governor Washington Hunt of New York, an apprentice in the office, and US President Millard Fillmore, a clerk in the bookstore.
Marshall, Spalding & Hunt set up their business in the Silas O. Smith’s three-story brick museum on the west side of Exchange Street in Rochester. (The reason the brick building was called a museum is because in the upper story was housed a Mastodon found in Perinton near where Fayette Lapham lived). The building also housed tailors, two judges, and a bindery. The office of Marshall, Spalding & Hunt was across the street from the office of Thurlow Weed, who published the Rochester Telegraph.
An advertisement seeking customers for the bookstore of Marshall, Spalding & Hunt appeared in the Poor Richard’s Alamack:
HAVE on hand a general assortment of BOOKS in the various departments of Literature, among which they would barely recount the titles of the most prominent School Books now in use . . . Walker’s Dictionary; MARSHALL’S, Webster’s, Cobb’s, Murray’s, Sears’, and Hull’s Spelling Books . . . They are also prepared to execute on the shortest notice, PRINTING of every description. Grateful for favours heretofore received, they respectfully invite the attention of their old friends and customers.[2]
In 1827, Marshall, Spalding & Hunt published Elijah Sedgwick’s book—The Plain Physician: Giving Directions for the Preservation of Health and the Cure of Disease.
Relationship between Elihu Marshall and Thurlow Weed
In 1825, the firm of Marshall, Spalding & Hunt began publishing the Rochester Album, a weekly newspaper with Elihu as editor. Since Elihu ran his newspaper across the street from the office of Thurlow Weed, editor of the Rochester Telegraph, Latter-day Saint historians have mistakenly viewed the relationship between Elihu and Thurlow as adversarial. Such was not the case when Joseph Smith and Martin Harris were seeking a publisher for the Book of Mormon.
Thurlow Weed and Elihu Marshall had more than a business association. They shared an anti-Masonic interest. In October 1826, Elihu Marshall printed an editorial in the Rochester Album, suggesting that the unlawful abduction of William Morgan, the man who threatened to reveal Masonic secrets, ought to be investigated. Edward Doyle, a Knight Templar and treasurer of the Monroe Encampment of Masons in Rochester, rushed into the office of the Rochester Album, ordered the paper be discontinued, and his advertisement stopped. Doyle told Elihu that if he did not cease publishing articles against the masonic fraternity, many others would take the same course, but if Elihu retracted his statements about William Morgan the next week, all would be well. Doyle then went to the printing office of a Royal Arch Mason and boasted “that he had shut the Quaker’s mouth.”
Elihu quelled under the Masonic threat and in the next issue of the Rochester Album made a partial retraction. Marshall, Spalding & Hunt then sold their newspaper to Thurlow Weed, who merged the paper with his Rochester Telegraph. Thurlow Weed demanded an investigation into the abduction of William Morgan and refused to take a backseat on the issue. In so doing, he put his name in neon lights across the nation which led to his political career.[3]
Supportive of the more assertive Thurlow Weed, Elihu Marshall opened his offices in the Museum building for meetings of anti-masonic influential men like Thurlow. Thurlow spent a fair share of time in Elihu’s office. In the rear of the building, Martin Cable engraved anti-masonic cartoons on the walls that are still there today.[4]
In April 1829, Thurlow Weed’s Rochester Telegraph ran an Elihu Marshall advertisement:
The subscribers have formed a connexion in business. The Printing, bookselling, and stationary [sic] business will be continued at Rochester, under the firm of Marshall, Dean & Co.; and the manufacturing of almost every description of paper, suited to the wants of the market, will in future be carried on at the “Waterloo Paper Mill,” under the firm of Chapin, Lucas & Co. . . As the reputation of the “Waterloo Paper” stands high in the estimation of those who have used it, the friends of the late firm of Marshall & Dean, and Chapin & Lucas, are invited to continue their patronage. . .
ELIHU F. MARSHALL, ELISHA DEAN, EPHRAIM CHAPIN, ALBERT LUCAS. Rochester, April 14, 1829.[5]
Marriage
It was not until age thirty-three that Elihu married Mary May on September 12, 1827 in Rochester. No children were born to their union. Elihu and Mary resided in the Rochester Third Ward, a political division in town. It should be noted that FamilySearch lists the name of his wife as Mary M. Sloan (1793-1886), daughter of James Sloan and Phebe Stratton. This is incorrect.
A Hicksite Quaker
In 1827, Elihu became a Hicksite Quaker. In answer to—“What is a Hicksite Quaker?” we present the following. Radical Quaker theologian Elias Hicks disagreed with orthodox Quakerism. Hicks’ teachings focused on the light within, accepting no Scripture or helps of any kind. He discounted education and training, and even preparation of a message, insisting only the revelation of Christ within was from God. Hicks dismissed the divinity and the atonement of Jesus Christ.
Not willing to be silenced in his views, Hicks and his followers separated from orthodox Quakers in 1827, the same year Joseph Smith received the gold plates from the angel Moroni. In so doing, it was said that Quaker “meetings were torn asunder, families entertained separate loyalties, and households were divided between the two groups.” In big cities, most stood by the traditional beliefs of the original Society of Friends, but not in Rochester where Elihu served as town treasurer.
Elihu Marshall and Peter Harris, brother of Lucy Harris, joined with the Hicksites. Elihu helped take over the Quaker building in Rochester. Adding to his obvious break with tradition, Elihu coauthored a pamphlet that delivered a stinging rebuke not only to orthodox Quakers but to any religious group that did not allow for “private judgment.” Elihu contended, “God accepted individual men based upon the life they lived, the Protestant obsession with creeds and confessionals notwithstanding.” Adherence to “speculative religion or abstract theology,” he argued, was “not a legitimate reason to reject someone that was trying to live the gospel of Christ.”
Joseph Smith and Martin Harris look for a publisher in Rochester
In June 1829, about two years after Elihu Marshall had become a Hicksite Quaker, Joseph Smith and Martin Harris visited with Elihu about publishing the Book of Mormon. Their stagecoach ride from Palmyra to Rochester stopped at Pittsford (a distance of eight miles) before going onto Rochester (fifteen additional miles).[6]
Once off the stage, Joseph Smith and Martin Harris visited with two publishers on Exchange Street. They first met with Thurlow Weed, who later wrote, “The prophet and his convert, (Smith and Harris) came to Rochester and offered us the honor of being their printer. But as we were only in the newspaper line, we contented ourselves with reading a chapter of what seemed such wretched and incoherent stupidity, that we wondered how ‘Joe’ had contrived to make the first fool with it. I . . . told him I was only publishing a newspaper and that he would have to go to a book publisher, suggesting a friend who was in that business.” [7]
At that time, the Marshall, Spalding, & Dean firm (new partner) was located at No. 9 Exchange Street in the Museum Building. Joseph Smith and Martin Harris crossed the street and entered the establishment and spoke with proprietor Elihu Marshall, a man using two crutches to move about.[8] They secured a bid from Elihu to publish the Book of Mormon. (The specified amount of the bid is unknown). Nevertheless, in June 1829 Elihu became the first publisher to agree to publish the Book of Mormon.
A year after the Smith/Harris encounter with Elihu, the Marshall, Dean & Co., Booksellers and Printers moved to No. 12 Exchange Street, a larger building and printed, “Having recently enlarged, and otherwise greatly improved their establishment.”[9] By 1839, Elihu had a new partner—Michael B. Bateham. Together they printed the New Genesee Farmer newspaper with Michael Bateham serving as the editorial supervisor. The paper was stopped in 1841 and purchased by Daniel D. T. Moore in 1844.[10]
Rochester Savings Bank
In 1829, the sixth savings bank to be incorporated in the state of New York was the Rochester Savings Bank. Elihu was an original trustee of the bank. The bank opened for business on Exchange Street, a few doors from Elihu’s office. In May 1834, the bank faced the possibility of closing its doors. Elihu was one of dozens of merchants who signed the Memorial of the Merchants and Others of Rochester, New York, “praying that measures of relief may be speedily adopted.”[11]
Death of Elihu Marshall
Elihu died on August 27, 1840 at his home on South Fitzhugh Street in Rochester at age forty-six. He was buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester.[12] His widow outlived him by forty-six years, dying at age ninety-three.
[1] “Alling & Cory has New Owners,” Democrat and Chronicle [Rochester, NY], April 18, 1996.
[2] Poor Richard’s Almanack (Rochester, NY: Marshall & Dean, 1828), back page.
[3] “Murder of William Morgan,” April 20, 2009. Newspaper Clipping.
[4] Anti-Masonic Almanac, for the Year of the Christian Era, 1829.
[5] Anti-Masonic Enquirer 2, no. 16 (May 26, 1829), p. 4.
[6] A Directory for the Village of Rochester (1827).
[7] “Origin of Mormonism,” Albany Evening Journal, quoted in the Boston Cultivator 8, no. 34 (August 22, 1846), p, 8.
[8] “But JOE crossed over the way to our neighbor ELIHU F. MARSHALL . . . ,” Albany Evening Journal, May 19, 1858.
[9] Anti-Masonic Enquirer, June 29, 1830; Anti-Masonic Enquirer, May 25, 1830.
[10] History of the Press in Western New York (1837).
[11] Jack W. Speare, In Rochester 100 Years Ago, p. 44.
[12] “Elihu Marshall,” Find a Grave Index.