"I trust [this banner] will be considered as an ornament to your Corps. But should the voice of our country, in the field of Justice and Freedom, summon you to the tested field to unfurl it in the face of an enemy, I feel a proud confidence that you will valiantly defend this banner, and your country's rights, surrendering either but with your lives." 

 —Mary Marshall (July 4, 1807) 

The Marshall House Hotel on East Broughton Street 

The Marshall House is Savannah's oldest hotel, located at the very center of the Historic District. Built in 1851 by Mary Marshall on the city's main downtown thoroughfare, Broughton Street, the hotel offers guests its famous wrought-iron 'Broughton Balcony' overlooking a bustling retail shopping area. 

The family roots of Mary Marshall go back to some of the earliest colonial days of Savannah history. Her father, Gabriel Leaver, was an accomplished cabinetmaker who came to Savannah directly from England. An only child, the land upon which Mary built the Marshall House was left to her when she inherited a sizable estate from her affluent family.  

Mary Magdalen Leaver was born in 1783. The first time a local newspaper mentioned her name was upon her marriage to James Marshall; this when Mary was but 16 years old. Her name appeared in the newspaper a second time at age 23 when she presented a banner to Savannah's Volunteer Guards on the Fourth of July in 1807. Her bannered handiwork still exists to this day.  

Mary lived to the ripe old age of 93. She died in 1877. Her remains are interred in the Marshall Family plot in Laurel Grove Cemetery. Her husband was long a revered member of the Volunteer Guard. 

Mary was a successful businesswoman in her own right during her busy life and was considered in the 1850s to be the wealthiest woman in Savannah. After the Civil War, Mary Telfair likely gave Mary Marshall a competitive run for the wealthiest woman in town (see PFS-34). 

The Marshall House Hotel opened in March 1851 on the southside of Broughton Street between Drayton and Abercorn. The hotel became a hospital used by Confederate and Union troops during the Civil War. And when more than one epidemic of Yellow Fever ravaged Savannah, the hotel also housed the ill — which definitely added to its haunting reputation on Savannah's poplar Ghost Tours. 

In 1999, The Marshall House was extensively restored and returned to its storied reputation as a showcase hotel. You'll find an oil portrait of Mary Marshall in the reception area, acquired from the estate of Jim Williams (see PFS-01). A small museum of artifacts is found on an upper floor.  

It's not surprising that Broughton Street became home to the Marshall House Hotel. Broughton is the main street of the Savannah downtown area, named for Thomas Broughton, an emigrant from the West Indies and a highly controversial figure in both Georgian and South Carolinian history. 

Married in 1683 to the daughter of a Royal Governor of South Carolina, Thomas Broughton followed into his father-in-law's profession, becoming an active politician in the Palmetto State. In protest after losing the governorship in 1710, Broughton led (but quickly withdrew) an armed militia on Charleston. 

An active Indian trader who tried his best to gain a trade monopoly from the House Commons of Assembly, Thomas Broughton also caused numerous quarrels among colonialists from Georgia against South Carolinians over his unfair enforcement of Indian trade laws. The Georgians retaliated by seizing South Carolinian vessels on the Savannah River. Why the city of Savannah named its main street after the controversial Broughton remains a mystery I could not resolve.