News from the Marshall House

The Marshall House continued its engagement with the Women in War Symposiums in May.

The foundation event had been presented by The Marshall House in 2022 and included speakers

Holly Mayer, a chair of military history at the US Military Academy, West Point and prominent author on leading topics such as Women Waging War in the American Revolution.

Todd Braisted, authority on Loyalist military history

Lois Huey presenting Molly Brant: A Legacy of Her Own

In May 2026 the Henry Knox and Women in War Symposium was presented in conjunction with American Revolution commemorations across the nation including many events authorized by the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors. A speaker sponsored by The Marshall House was Paul Staiti who spoke on the calamity of Jane McCrea, bringing new insights about the production of historical iconography.

In 2024 Dr. Friederike Baer came to Saratoga and shared exceptional findings on the Baroness Riedesel in her address, "With the Battle of Saratoga our Misfortunes began, Friederike Riedesel in the War for American Independence".

Dr. Baer is a leading researcher on German troops accompanying the British Army in the American Revolution. https://friederikebaer.com/

A work of music is being prepared for presentation in 2027, the 250th anniversary of the battles of Saratoga.

There will be openings to see The Marshall House on October 10 and 11, 2026.

The Marshall House has, until recent years, always been a farmhouse. The Bullards were fruit and vegetable growers and dairymen.

In the nineteen thirties Kenneth Bullard, while excavating to build cold frames some thirty yards from The Marshall House, exhumed the bodies of several soldiers. Having been hastily buried in quick lime they quickly disintegrated. Baroness Riedesel records in her Journal that those who died from their wounds were buried nearby in the dark of night.

During World War II, men having been drafted, Mr. Bullard enlisted the aid of Lucy Scribner, then President of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, to help recruit college girls to help harvest his crops. Here you will see photographs of them working. Simple dormitories were built to house them and a barn featuring a kitchen and large dining hall was also erected.

Mrs. Bullard supervised the cooking, Mr. Bullard taught the girls to square dance and served as lifeguard when they went down to the river after work to swim. The old Boardman & Grey upright piano in the dining hall that provided their music was presented in later years to the Adirondack Loj Club, near Lake Placid, where it is yet enjoyed.

After the war for two seasons young women, coal Miners’ daughters, were brought to the farm from Windber, Pennsylvania. Next he hired black migrants from Florida to work the crops. Members of the same families were with the Bullards, father and son, from 1946 until 1993. Some of their children remained over the winters to attend the local school. They wintered with Schuylerville families.

At one time The Marshall House was the center of a fifteen hundred acre fruit and vegetable farm. With the departure of the canning and freezing industry from New York the vegetable operation ceased and the herd of registered Holstein cows was sold in 1969.

Modernizing the apple orchards was undertaken on one hundred and sixty-seven acres. Importation of apples from abroad and the high cost of labor together with changes in how fruit is marketed doomed the farm. The last crop was harvested in 1993.