Edward Colston Marshall (1821-1893) Congressman; California Attorney General

Hon. Edward C. Marshall

 

Edward Marshall (June 29, 1821 – July 9, 1893) was an American politician who served as congressman from California's at-large district from 1851 to 1853, and as California attorney general from 1883 to 1887. He was a member of the Democratic Party.

Edward Colston Marshall was born in Woodford County, Kentucky on June 29, 1821. He attended Centre College in Danville, Kentucky and graduated from Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky. He later attended Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), where he studied law. He was admitted to the bar and moved to San Francisco, California and later to Sonora, California where he practiced law.

Marshall served in the Mexican-American War. 

He was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-second Congress (March 4, 1851 – March 3, 1853); was renominated in 1852, but withdrew before the election. 

"...not so scholarly as his elder brother, Thomas F. Marshall, nor possessed of such powers as a logician, but the master of as keen a wit and more playful and unstudied humor, and capable of rising to the highest flights of eloquence."  - Historic Families of Kentucky. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1964.

He then settled in Marysville, Calif., and again engaged in the practice of law. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1856. He moved back to Kentucky and devoted himself to legal pursuits for the next twenty-one years. He eventually returned to San Francisco in 1877 and continued the practice of law. In 1882, he was elected attorney general of California, serving in that role from 1883 to 1886. 

He died in San Francisco on July 9, 1893.

[Biography from Wikipedia]