Delaware businessman, historian, antique car enthusiast and philanthropist Thomas C. Marshall Jr., 94, died Tuesday after a long illness.
The announcement was made by the Friends of Auburn Heights.
The son of the late T. Clarence and Esther Shallcross Marshall, he is survived by Ruth Pierson Marshall, his wife of 34½ years.
Marshall was known by antique car collectors all over North America as one of the world’s foremost authorities on Stanley Steamers and worked to preserve that legacy.
Marshall spent his first 84 years living in Yorklyn at Auburn Heights, the Victorian-era home built by his grandparents in 1897.
He moved from Auburn Heights in 2008, when he and his wife, Ruth, donated the property to the state of Delaware to become the centerpiece of Auburn Valley State Park.
The 360-acre park consists of open space donated by Tom and his cousin, Eleanor Marshall Reynolds, as well as adjacent properties of the former NVF Company purchased by the state after the company founded by Tom’s family went out of business.
Although he no longer lived at Auburn Heights after 2008, Tom remained active in his role as Founding Director of the Friends of Auburn Heights Preserve, and he could be found working in the museum and workshops at Auburn Heights well into his 90s.
After graduating from Wilmington Friends School in 1941, Marshall attended Mercersburg Academy for a year before going on to M.I.T. in 1942-43.
He served in the U.S. Army from 1942-46 as a weather forecaster in New Mexico and then as an aerial weather observer on a B-24 flight crew in the Western Pacific.
Tom’s founded and operated a travel agency from 1949-63, Marshall & Burton Travel Associates (later to become Marshall & Greenplate). He opened the first of his two Holiday Inns in Wilmington in 1961 and operated the properties for 36 years.
He was founder of the Wilmington & Western Railroad, the historic nonprofit line whose steam trains have carried visitors through Red Clay Valley since the summer of 1966.
He served as the W&W’s first President and General Manager from 1960 through 1971, and he remained active as a volunteer and Board member for many years thereafter.
Tom and his father, Clarence, shared a lifelong interest in steam technology, whether on the rails, in the family’s manufacturing plants, or on the road.
Clarence served as the sales agent for the Stanley Motor Carriage Co. – “Stanley Steamers” – from 1910 to 1920, and he began collecting, restoring and operating them in 1940, a hobby that would last throughout his life and which Tom would continue.
The Marshalls’ assemblage of Stanley steam cars would come to be recognized as the world’s definitive collection.
He drove his 1912 30-horsepower Stanley touring car on four transcontinental tours, the longest of which was an 8,328-mile trip from Yorklyn to Montreal, Canada, and Tijuana, Mexico, and return in 1972.
Tom donated his collection of antique cars, trains and other collectibles to the Friends, whose volunteers still maintain and operate the cars and miniature steam railroad for the public to enjoy at Auburn Heights.
Marshall was active with local Quaker organizations, serving in several positions with the Hockessin Friends Meeting and the Friends Home in Kennett Square for more than 50 years
Details on services and memorial donations will be shared as information is available: http://test.auburnheights.org/in-memorium-thomas-c-marshal…/
