John was born England on Sept 21, 1825, the son of William and Mary Bingham Marshall. He married Eliza in 1848.

Finding life in England held no prospects for them, and after losing two children (one stillborn and one in infancy) they left for America in April of 1851. They arrived in New York and then travelled via the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes to Chicago. From there they moved on to Saint Charles, Illinios, arriving there on June 9, 1851.

While the portraits have suffered some of the ravages of time, they are an interesting study of the subjects, clearly done by a master portrait maker. Click on either of the links, and then enlarge the image, and the details fairly jump out at you.

The technique for making portraits such as these was to take a blank canvas stretched over a wood frame, treat it with sizing and apply a coat of finely ground charcol where the portrait would appear. This was then covered by white paint.

Once the paint had dried, the image was created by removing the charcol with a variety of scrapers, revealing the portrait. The coloring (see Eliza's lips in the enlarged version) would be hand applied after the work with the charcol was complete.