Marshall was born near Springfield, Ohio, and graduated in 1883 from Union Business College at Lafayette, Indiana. He began his business career as a stationery salesman. From the 1890s to the 1920s, Marshall was a founder or president of companies related to bridge construction, road paving, public utilities, railroads, and grain storage.[1] As president of the Western Construction Company, Marshall was indicted in 1908 when an employee overcharged the city of Indianapolis for a paving job.[2]
He purchased and consolidated the Lafayette Sunday Times and the Lafayette Morning Journal in 1914. In 1920 he merged them with the Lafayette Daily Courier to form the Journal & Courier, which remains the main newspaper of the Lafayette area.[1] The Evansville Courier was another Indiana newspaper company that he bought that year; he sold it to Mayor Benjamin Bosse a few months later.[3] Marshall continued to be the Journal & Courier's editor-in-chief for the rest of his life, although he eventually passed the title of publisher on to his son, Henry Marshall Jr.[1]
Politics and other activities
A member of the Republican Party, Marshall served in the Indiana House of Representatives from 1899 until 1905. In the 1903 legislative session he was that chamber's speaker.[1] Following his time in the legislature, Marshall continued to be active in state politics and was a delegate to state and national party conventions. In 1932 Marshall led a group that convinced the Indiana Republican convention to support the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages.[4]
In 1921, Marshall was appointed to the board of trustees of Purdue University.[5] The university's president, Winthrop Stone, died in a mountain-climbing accident a few months later, and Marshall was chosen to act as president until a successor could be found. Marshall considered this twelve-month period to be a time of crisis and refused to accept any payment for his services.[6]
Chicago's International Livestock Exposition first elected Marshall as their president in 1933. They re-elected him sixteen times and he resigned in 1949.[1] By the time of his death in 1951, Marshall owned 6,000 acres (2,400 ha) of farm land near his home in Lafayette, Indiana.[3][7]
References
^ abcde"Henry Marshall, Indiana Publisher: Founder of Lafayette Journal and Courier Dies". The New York Times. 1951-02-01. p. 25.
