Historic Moment: General/Mayor James C. Marshall

By Jorge Batlle

Village Historian

James Creel Marshall was born October 15, 1897 in Plattsburg, Missouri.  He was a member of West Point class of 1918, that graduated early due to World War I. He ranked 24th in the class. He was commissioned a First Lieutenant and a temporary Captain of  the Army Corps of Engineers. While at the Engineer Officers’ Training School, at Camp Lee, Virginia, he met and married Mabel Estelle Wolff from Brooklyn. They had two children, Beryl born in 1919 and Robert Creel born in 1921.

As a young officer in the Corps of Engineers, he served in Mexico where he commanded  a mounted engineer company which had more horses and mules than men. He went back to his rank of First Lieutenant November 1922. He took charge of Engineering Office in New Jersey. In 1926 he was commander of the 11th Engineers in the Panama Canal Zone.

He became an instructor in the Department of Engineering  at West Point in 1928. He was promoted to Captain in 1933 with duty in the Office of Chief Engineers in Washington, D.C. With the outbreak of World War II in Europe, promotions accelerate, and was promoted to Major in 1940. He became District Engineer of the Binghamton District and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel  June 1941. In 1942 he became District Engineer for the Syracuse District covering New York and part of Pennsylvania with the rank of Colonel. From this position he was responsible for many major projects including ammunition and explosive facilities, the construction of the Hancock Field, the Seneca Army Depot, flood control measures on the Delaware River, and the rebuilding of the Eire Canal between Albany and Oswego.

On June 18, 1942 Marshall was called to Washington to take over a bomb project, known then as the DSM or Laboratory Development of Substitute Materials. Under the direction of Brigadier General Leslie Groves, a West Point classmate, they set up a district office on the 18th floor of 270 Broadway, in New York City. The name of the project was changed to Manhattan Engineer District following the usual practice of naming engineering districts after the city in which their headquarters were located.

Marshall was involved with the construction of the Oak Ridge plant in Tennessee, also a member of General MacArthur’s staff in the southwest pacific. He received the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal and the Army Commendation Medal.

Retiring from the service in 1947, General Marshall moved to Skaneateles, based on a glowing recommendation of a friend, who was also a West Point classmate and from working with Skaneateles contractors Wikstrom and Winkelman on the Oak Ridge facility. Using the Village as a base of operations, he worked on various projects around the world. He took a job with the Koppers Corp building a coal loading facility in Turkey, worked for the United Nations Korean Relief,  involved in mining projects in Africa, and was Commissioner of Highways in Minnesota in 1963.

Back in Skaneateles again in 1965, he was an engineering consultant and professional engineering arbitrator. He was elected Mayor of the Village in 1967.

His energy did not subside.  He proposed a by-pass route north of the Village  to  handle the increasing traffic. He came out against adding Dewitt taking water from the Syracuse system, citing insufficient water flow down the Skaneateles Outlet.

He instructed the Village Police to remove all posters and flyers from Village utility poles. He had the Village adopt the New York State Building Code.  Also in 1967, most of the stately elm trees were removed due to Dutch Elm Disease. Mayor Marshall set up a tree replanting program.

The Village at that time had no local ambulance service. The Mayor set up a committee to study the problem. Mark DeMichael, then vice president of Niagara Mohawk, prepared a report from the committee that said that it would be impossible for the Village to set up its own ambulance service. Marshall ripped it in half and handed it back to DeMichael and said “you are all fired.” That afternoon he got another group together and went on to raise $54,000.

The Town Landfill was located on Gully Road and was called “The Dump.” The County Health Department threatened to close this ‘dump.’ The Mayor made a suggestion to the Town Board that they start looking for a new site, possibly on the Smith Farm on West Elizabeth Street. (This is the 40 acre site that is now Parkside Subdivision). He made that suggestion to focus attention on this problem, A petition was signed by 150 residents against this location. The Mayor confessed that he may have caused a stronger focus than he had intended. He did suggest that the term “sanitary landfill” be used instead of “dump” – this is a facility where the refuse in placed in trenches and covered over with soil.  Used successfully  throughout  the nation, this eliminates odors and vermin. Mayor Marshall also suggested the use of an incinerator.

He spearheaded the building of the indoor ice hockey rink, with the help of a incentive donation of $150,000 from W. G. Allyn who was a big hockey fan.  Before that, they use to spray water in the parking lot, let it freeze and use that for skating.

Mayor Marshal was responsible for other projects in the Village such as repairing the 1920s era two inch cast iron West Lake branch sewer line that was leaking into the Lake.  He consolidated the various communications systems of the Village, placing them in the Fennell Street fire station.

Mayor Marshall  saved the Sherwood Inn from becoming a Holiday Inn. According to a 2007 Historical Society program of former Village Attorney Ted Lavery, Mayor Marshall received  a phone call where the caller said that they were buying the Sherwood Inn and going to tear it down. The Mayor asked if they were going to put up one of those Holiday Inn signs there? They said, yes. The Mayor said you can buy it – but you are not going to tear it down, and you are not going to put up one of those Holiday Inn signs in our Village. They replied back – you can’t say or do that. The Mayor said, well, I just did. That was before the Holiday Inn was built in Auburn.

General Marshal died of cancer July 19 1977 age 79. He cremated and buried in the West Point Cemetery. If you want to find out more about General/Mayor Marshall there is a CD at the Creamery which gives a more detailed report on this man.