Person:John Marley (9)

John Huston Marley was born in Tennessee in Monroe County or possibly Chattanooga and lived in Monroe County, Tennessee until he was about 12 years old.

Grandchildren of his brother James said that it was in late 1850 that he and his parents and their other children moved to Northwest Missouri, to Clay County. Little is known of their whereabouts until 1860 when John, 21, was in the 1860 Federal census living in the household of his older brother James Marley and James' wife Minerva and their family. They lived in Fishing River township, Ray, Missouri.

In the early 1860s when the Civil War began he was enlisted on the Union side, in Company E of the 51st Enrolled Missouri Militia. They were called to active duty several times during the Civil War.

He married Elizabeth Ellison or Elliston on 26 Apr 1864 when he was about 25. In the 1870 federal census they and their children lived in Grant township, Caldwell County, Missouri, near his older brother James Marley's family. The 1870 farm schedule for Grant township shows that John Marley had 15 acres of developed farmland worth $300, $30 worth of farm implements, one horse, one milch cow, two other cattle and 10 sheep. His livestock was worth $270. He had paid out $10 in farm wages that year.

After the death of his brother James in 1876, John Marley moved to Mills County, Iowa, in about 1876 to 1878. His sisters Sarah Elizabeth and Jane Marley Hightower already lived there. None of them except Sarah and her husband Alexander McCrary are found in the 1880 census of Lyons township, Mills, Iowa. John's three grown sons were married in the late 1880s or early 1890s in Lyons township, though, and John, a widower, was listed in the 1895 Iowa state census of Lyons township.

On July 19, 1896 John married a young widow, Eunice Drucilla Ward Oakes in Mills, Iowa. They were counted as a family in the 1900 Federal census of Lyons township, Mills, Iowa. They as individuals were in the 1905 Iowa state census of Lyons township. John was named 'Huestin' Marley in that census and said he had been living in Iowa 31 years, or since about 1874. Eunice Drucilla had been in Iowa 10 years, from about 1895. She said her occupation was dressmaker.

By 1910, as shown in the 1910 Fed. census, John Huston Marley was not fully independent; he was living with his son John Marley and family in Lyons township and his other two sons, William and Hugh, lived close by with their families. Eunice, John's wife, and their five children had moved to nearby Council Bluffs, Iowa.

John was about 72 years old in 1910 and about 74 years old when he died Feb. 1, 1913.

On a 1910 plat map, John's farm in Lyons township was right next to the Quaker meetinghouse. In later years, his widow Eunice told her family that she was a Quaker.

1. ↑ Death Certificate, John H Marley.
2. ↑ 1900 Federal census John H Marley Lyons township, Mills, Iowa.

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