In October 1852 a survey crew working for the U.S. government marked all the section corners in the six mile square which would become Marshall, walking through the woods and swamps, measuring with chain and compass.

Covered with white and yellow Birch, Sugar, Maple, Elm, Ash And some Pine, some places Hemlock mostly.

In 1878 the Mississippi River Logging Company had built a large dam twelve miles downstream on the Chippewa at what is now Holcombe.

A tote road from Cornell (then called Brunett) passed up through the west end what would become Marshall, following the east side of Main Creek.

Another tote road from Cornell stopped at the south edge of what would become Marshall at the Jump River near the future County G bridge.

[7] A later map, from 1901, shows the area when Rusk County was called Gates and Marshall was still part of a large town of Dewey.

The map shows one wagon road in the town, entering from Chippewa County on the south edge, crossing the river, and passing Fern Post Office.

Away from the road and the Little Jump, most of the land was still in large blocks, with the largest landholders Cornell University, Fitch Gilbert and Keith Brothers on the west, Northwestern Lumber Company on the east, and James L. Gates,[8][9] who speculated in pinelands and sold the cutover lands to farmers.

Another short road reached east a quarter mile from the modern County V to a sawmill on the Little Jump River.

[12] This rail line cut across Marshall diagonally, crossing the Jump River a mile east of Fern.

The Wisconsin Central built a depot and section house on the north bank of the river and called the station "Sheldon."

[13] A 1914 plat map of Marshall shows the Soo Line Railroad crossing the town, with Sheldon on the north side of the river.