Thomas Marshall was a Virginia surveyor, planter, military officer soldier and politician who served in the House of Burgesses and briefly in the Virginia House of Delegates and helped form the state of Kentucky, but may be best known as the father of Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Marshall. Marshall opposed slavery in Ohio but practiced and proposed indentured servitude of former slaves.

John Marshall was an American statesman, lawyer, and Founding Father who served as the fourth chief justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remains the longest-serving chief justice and fourth-longest serving justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential justices ever to serve. Prior to joining the court, Marshall briefly served as both the U.S. secretary of state under President John Adams, and a representative, in the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia, thereby making him one of the few Americans to serve on all three branches of the United States federal government.