The Marsh's are from a long line of Quaker stock. 

Mifflin Marsh's great-great-great-great-grandfather, John Marsh, lived in Armagh, Northern Ireland until his death in 1688. He was one of the original followers of George Fox, a weaver's son who founded the Society of Friends (Quakers) in England in 1648, and spent 1669 preaching in North Ireland.

We have since been told by a Marsh descendent and genealogist that actually he was the great-great grandson, 2nd great grandson or the fourth generation and that the line was as follows:

John Marsh 1620-1688 Armagh, N. Ireland
Joseph Marsh b. 1640 Armagh, N. Ireland
Joshua b. 1677 in Armagh, Ireland d. 1748 Chester, Co., PA
William Marsh  Lived in PA then MD then Smithfield, OH
Mifflin Marsh 1818-1901  born in Smithfield, OH (near Wheeling and Cadiz)

Although the Quakers were riduculed and persecuted as dissenters from the Established Church of England, their numbers grew. In 1691, a refuge for the Quakers was established in America with the charter of Pennsylvania to William Penn (a Quaker minister) in exchange for a $16,000 claim against the crown. 

In June of 1736 John Marsh's grandson, Joshua Marsh and his family joined thousands of German and Scotch-Irish newcomers who immigrated to Pennsylvania. (From 1720 to 1730, Pennsylvania doubled its population from 50,000 to 100,000.) The Marsh's remained there through the Indian Wars, the Revolution, the post war depression, the 1786 Recession and the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791-1795 (a western Pennsylvania insurrection by the Scotch-Irish against taxes on whiskey.) 

Mifflin Marsh was named after a popular and well-respeced Quaker, Thomas Mifflin, who was elected Pennsylania's first governor in 1790 with an election margin of 27,118 to 2,819. During the war, Thomas Mifflin was commissioned brigadier-general, later serving as President of the Continental Congress, and succeding Benjamin Franklin as President fo the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. 

In 1797 Joshua's son, William Marsh, moved his family from Pennsylvania to Baltimore. No Revoluntionary War battles had been fought on Maryland soil and the state had a strong economy until 1808, when exports dropped form $14,300,000 to $2,700,000 due to a one year embargo. 

At the same time, a large part of Ohio had opened to settlement after victories over the Indians of the Northwest Territory had removed the danger of Indian raids. Pittsburgh, then a straggling village of 1,200 grew rapidly and the Ohio River became a great artery of communication and commerce. 

In 1810, William joined this westward movement and moved his family to Smithfield, Ohio, where Mifflin Marsh, Rachel Ann's father, was born and raised. 

July 26, 1999 

Watkins is a very old American family of Welsh ancestry. Three brothers, Shadrach, Mesbach and Abednego, came from Wales and settled in the colonies of Delaware and Maryland, with desecndands scattering to all parts of the country. 

Harry and Charles Watkins, Jr's great-great-grandfather, Peter Watkins, was born in Delaware in 1712. He was a privateer during the Revolution with Letters of Marquee from the Continental Congress to prey on British shipping. It is believed he was killed on a Man o' War in 1788. 

His son, Thomas Watkins (1771-1844), was an early pioneer of Southern Ohio and operated a farm in Guernsey County, Ohio. 

Thomas' son, John Watkins (1804-1876) settled on Wheeling Island as a young man, with a home convenient to his business as a steamboat engineer and river pilot. In his last years, he was toll taker at the old bridge between Bridgeport and Wheeling Island. On December 12, 1829, John Watkins married Sarah Dillon Hunter (1800-1866). 

John and Sarah's son, Charles H. Watkins, Sr. (1841-1908), lived in Wheeling. In 1861 he enlisted as a soldier of Union Army in the Civil War, in Carlin's Battery D, First West Virginia Light Artillery. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Lexington, and placed in the notorious warehouse prison, Libby Prison, until he escaped with fellow prisoner, William Pebler. As a result of his imprisonment, he was incapacitated for further duty and did not serve after 1864. 

Charles H. Watkins, Sr. was an account and manager of M. Marsh & Son for a number of years. He served as City Clerk of Wheeling for three years and was one of the founders of the Thompson Methodist Episcopal Church of Wheeling. 

He married Rachel Ann Marsh (1845-1907) in 1867. They had nine children: Mifflin Marah and William Brown (both died in infancy), Charles H. Jr., John Wagner (died at twenty), Harry Adams, Sr., Edna Rachel (married French D. Walton), Joseph Jacobs, Roy Naylor (died of four), and Wilber Whally (died of influenza at 27, believed as the result of embalming a victim of the Spanish Influenza, a highly infectious respiratory infection that spread thoughout the world from 1917-1919.)