Constructed in 1770–1773 as a gambrel-roofed, heavy timbered farmhouse and remodeled in 1867–1868 in the Italianate Style, the Marshall House retains substantial integrity of design and materials.
Pressed into service as a British field hospital, the building became the refuge of the Baroness Frederika Riedesel, whose well known diary chronicles the tribulations, deaths and heroism of other noncombatants, wounded officers, and men who sheltered with her through a six-day artillery bombardment and siege.
The area, originally called Saratoga, was inhabited by Dutch and English settlers beginning in 1684 who came to advantage themselves of the plentiful water power afforded by the confluence of the Hudson River, the Fish Creek, and the Batten Kill at this point, in addition to being aided by rich soils.
There are some indications that the subject house and its surrounding farm served as a collection point for timber and local produce for shipping down river to Albany, to be sold there by the three-man partnership that built it.
The Marshall House attained its fame for the role it played in the events leading to the British surrender following the Battles of Saratoga fought during September–October, 1777.
During the afternoon of October 10 American batteries emplaced on the east side of the Hudson River opened fire on Riedesel's defenses some fifty rods south of the Marshall House.
“We were at last obliged to resort to the cellar for refuge, and in one corner of this I remained the whole day, my children sleeping on the earth with their heads in my lap; and in the same situation I passed a sleepless night.
One poor soldier who was lying on a table for the purpose of having his leg amputated, was struck by a shot, which carried away his other; his comrades had left him, and when we went to his assistance we found him in a corner of the room, into which he had crept, more dead than alive, scarcely breathing”.
As their danger continued, the refugees and wounded suffered for want of water, the well having gone dry: ”At length we found a soldier's wife who had courage enough to fetch us some from the river, an office nobody else would undertake, as the Americans shot at every person who approached it; but, out of respect for her sex, they never molested her”.
Cannonballs that struck the house are displayed as are the floor in the northeast room bloodstained from its use as a makeshift hospital, and the capacious stone cellar.
The original form of the house was as constructed c. 1770 a 1+1⁄2-story, heavy timbered post-and-beam, gambrel-roofed main block with a recessed, gable-roofed kitchen wing attached to the southwest corner.
The original five-bay center-hall plan of the colonial farmhouse was retained when the full second story was added at the time of the Italianate remodeling of 1867–68.
A “modern” nineteenth century kitchen and two small utility rooms are located in the west wing above a crawl space containing a disused cistern.
The floors downstairs and upstairs are wide native white pine boards secured to the heavy adz-hewn joists below with 4-inch (100 mm) hand-cut iron nails.
Behind and west of the building that is the chief subject of this article stands a small lodge erected in 1957 called the Apple Cottage (Ringo-an in Japanese).
The roof is Granville slate, its siding is Adirondack white pine board-and-batten, its entry steps are taken from a nearby old Champlain Canal commutation bridge abutment, and its wooden window sash were made locally.