The rare find: Marshall photos seen for first time
Herald-Standard
The Rev. Peter Malik holds a photograph (circa 1896) that shows a young George C. Marshall near the JV Thompson home that was located along Main Street Uniontown. The house in the photograph is the house directly behind Malik. The photo is one of two recently discovered.
A plaque at Marshall Plaza shows a young George C. Marshall in front of his boyhood home which was located on Main Street near the the plaza.
The Rev. Peter Malik holds a photograph (circa 1896) that shows a young George C. Marshall near the JV Thompson home that was located along Main Street Uniontown. The house depicted in the photograph is the house directly behind Malik. The photo is one of two recently discovered.
submitted photo
Pictured in this 1896 photograph is George C. Marshall’s childhood home at 142 Main St. in Uniontown. (Photo courtesy of the Rev. Peter Malik, the Rev. Travis Deans and Mike Gallis.)
Pictured in the this 1896 photograph is George C. Marshall (standing left) along with Andrew A. Thompson (standing right) at the J.V. Thompson home located on Main Street across from the Marshall home. (photo courtesy of Rev. Peter Malik, Rev. Travis Deans and Mike Gallis)
Sometimes finding treasure does not involve following a map to where “X” marks the spot.
For the Rev. Peter A. Malik, his latest treasure was found in the cellar of a Uniontown building.
“The late historian Michael ‘Mick’ Gallis, contacted us (Malik and Travis R. Deans) saying that they found a box of glass negatives in one of (J.V.) Thompson’s houses,” explained Malik.
It was these negatives that were found in either the Redburn House at 139 W. Main St. or at Oak Hill in North Uniontown Township, that led to the discovery of two unpublished George C. Marshall photos.
Because the images were on glass plate negatives, one of the earliest forms of photographic negatives, Malik had to get a little creative.
“Rev. Dean and I got a copy lens for the camera, and we took a photo (of the negative) over the light box and had McGarvey (McGarvey’s One Hour Photo) develop it,” said Malik.
Once Malik saw the photo of the house he knew immediately that it was the childhood home of George C. Marshall, which stood where the former VFW Post 47 is on Main Street in downtown Uniontown.
George and Laura Marshall, George C. Marshall’s parents, built their house around 1876 and lived there until the house was demolished in 1903 by Harry Beeson, the great-grandson of Jacob Beeson, one of the founders of Uniontown. He did this to build the West End Theater, which was later purchased in 1940 by VFW Post 47 who removed the third story for their veterans home.
This photo was taken across the street from a house that was owned by Thompson, which is also the setting for the second unpublished photo.
In this photo, a 15-year-old George C. Marshall is pictured with his friend, Andrew Anderson Thompson, the son of J.V. Thompson who was the same age as Marshall, and an unidentified boy.
Malik said that because of how the boys are dressed it looked like the photo was taken July 4, 1896, to commemorate the centennial of when Uniontown became a borough.
The photo was taken on the Redburn/Thompson double mansion, that was located in the former VFW Post 47 parking lot on Main Street in Uniontown. Visible in the background is the McCray house that was built around 1862 and is now Pepperberries gift shop.
After the photos were identified by Malik and Deans, they contacted the George C. Marshall Foundation located in Lexington, Virginia, and spoke with Paul B. Barron, director of library and archives with the foundation.
“The pictures are a very welcome addition to our collection because we have so few of the young George Marshall. What strikes me most as I look at the picture of the young George C. Marshall with Andrew Thompson is his confident look,” he said.
After speaking with Barron, Malik sent the foundation prints of the photos which they will keep.
Additionally, the photos will play a role in Malik’s 2016 book that takes a look at the history of Uniontown through a timeline and photographs of various areas of the city at different time periods.
Through his research for his book and one that is currently published, Malik has gained much knowledge and respect for the man who always considered Uniontown his home.
“(People will say) after he became famous he never came back. The only time he didn’t come back was the dedication of the honor roll (in front of the Fayette County Courthouse) because he was otherwise engaged,” said Malik. “D-Day was a week later.”
Looking back on Marshall’s accomplishments, Malik is happy to have Marshall as a hometown boy.
“Thank God we have George Marshall,” he said. “Uniontown should be proud.”
However, Malik is not the only person who understands that Marshall kept a special place in his heart for Uniontown.
“The pictures are also a reminder to us that George C. Marshall was from the Keystone State of Pennsylvania; he was not a native Virginian although his family had deep roots in the Old Dominion,” said Barron. “I would hope that Pennsylvanians understand the influence of growing up in Uniontown on General Marshall; ‘the greatest American of the 20th century’ remembered with great fondness that Uniontown ‘was a charming place to live and we had great fun of it, and it largely centered around our yard. And the creek, of course, was the great jewel of the production.'”