[2] The town and its lawyers followed a casual, frontier-oriented culture; but Marshall, who believed devoutly in order and hard work, followed a different path.

[5]  In early 1880, a time when American businesses were consolidating and trying to achieve monopoly control in many different fields, the Eau Claire group approached Weyerhaeuser about a cooperative arrangement.

At Weyerhaeuser’s request Marshall prepared a charter for a cartel, known as the Chippewa Pool, under which both groups would share their facilities in order to gather logs and ship them downriver to Midwestern lumber markets.

Marshall’s role in forming it, and his association with Weyerhaeuser brought him legal and political prominence and made him a wealthy man.

He achieved his success in an era that believed in minimizing constraints on entrepreneurialism and exploitation of natural resources, and he defended those beliefs throughout his life.

“Decisive, uncompromising, domineering, his arrogance is born of the impatience of strength and not that of weakness,” said one observer; “[h]is capacity for work appears to be unlimited.”[8]  Marshall soon expressed interest in advancing to Wisconsin's Supreme Court.

After passing up two opportunities because he believed the prevailing political conditions were not right, he secured nearly unanimous support from the state’s bar for a vacancy that occurred in 1895 and Governor William Upham appointed him to the Court, albeit with some reluctance.

[12] During the late Progressive era Marshall and John Winslow, the Court’s chief justice, engaged in a continuing debate over the proper interpretation of the federal and state constitutions in light of changing social needs.