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Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES: MAR FOREE, FIELD, CLARK,

Standing high in musical circles of the state as a teacher of voice and piano, Josephine Marshall Fernald is the efficient director of the Stanford Music School and of the Berkeley School of Music, recently established at 2168 Shattuck Avenue. She comes from one of the most disinguished families in America, being a direct descendant of Chief Justice John Marshall, and she has all the virility and acumen of her illustrious progenitor, who in a more clear and forcible way than any other jurist, construed the Constitution of the United States.

Mrs. Fernald's parents were Maj. Lewis Field Marshall and Mary Helen Mar Foree. Her father was born in 1825 and was the son of John Marshall, whose wife was Mildred Field. She was the daughter of Lewis Field, born in 1763, the son of Colonel John Field, born in 1720, whose wife was Ann Rogers Clark. Col. John Field served in the French and Indian War in 1756, and in 1758 as a captain under Forbes in protecting the frontier. In 1760, as colonel of a company, he was ordered to join General Braddock at Fort Duquesne during the battle on the Monongahela River. Braddock was mortally wounded, General Washington taking his place, and under him Colonel Field served as lieutenant-colonel. In 1764 he was a major in Bagnet's expedition, and in 1865 he was a burgess. In 1774 he enlisted in an independent volunteer company of thirty-five men, reinforced by 100 Virginia Regulars, and joined Colonel Lewis at Fort Union. He was killed at Point Pleasant, October 10, 1774, during the fight with the French and Indians under Comstock, whom he defeated, for which service his heirs were granted large tracts of land in Kentucky by Lord Fairfax, part of this land now being Bourbon County. Mrs. Fernald is also a descendant of George Rogers Clark, the intrepid explorer of the Northwest, in whose honor the Lewis & Clark Exposition at Portland was held. Another ancestor, Lewis Field Marshall, enlisted in the Revolutionary War in 1779, at the age of sixteen. He was captured in June, 1779, by Little Turtle, the Indian Chief, and was for some time held a prisoner at Montreal and Quebec.

 Capt. William Marshall, father of John Marshall, born in 1730, was a captain of Virginia Militia in 1776. On September 3, of that year, he marched with his company to Williamsburg, Va. His father, Col. William Marshall, grandfather, Col. Thomas Marshall of Westmoreland County, and his great-grandfather, Col. John Marshall, were officers in the Colonial and Indian Wars. Capt. John Marshall of England and Ireland distinguished himself at the siege of Calais, for which service he demanded the restoration of his lost title, Earl of Pembroke and Sturguil. Capt. William Marshall was a lineal descendant of William Marshall, first Earl of Pembroke of the Marshall line, and Regent of England in 1216, and whose name is first after that of King John upon the Magna Charta of England. Mary Helen Mar Foree, French "Faure," was descended from the widow Faure, who with four children, was sent by the bounty and goodwill of the King of England on the ship Mary and Ann, arriving July 23, 1700, after thirteen weeks passage from London with the first Huguenot refugees, about 700 in number, and settled at Manakin Tower, eighteen miles below Richmond on the James River.

Mrs. Fernald was born May 25, 1880, in Blandville, Ky., and at the. early age of nine years was receiving a salary as organist of the Baptist Church of Memphis, Tenn., where she studied piano, voice and theory for two years. She joined the Emma Abbott Opera Company, taking minor parts, and received instruction under Emma Abbott for three years and accompanied her in concert. Then for two years she was vice-president and head of piano and voice departments of the California Conservatory of Music in San Francisco; she then entered the Boston Conservatory of Music at Boston, Mass., and was a pupil of Otto Bendix, piano, and Edith Evani, voice. After graduation from the Boston Conservatory of Music she continued private instruction with Bendix, who had then removed to Chicago, acting as his concert substitute and toured in concert with him. She taught in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and established her own music school in San Francisco. She has traveled all over America in concert, oratories and opera; was with Emma Eames Opera Company and the Metropolitan Opera Company; she founded the Woman's Symphony Association and St. Frances Delphian Club, and was one of the promoters of the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Dramatic Society, San Francisco, Cal.

 In October, 1919, she founded the Stanford Music School, which is now located at 915 Waverly Street, Palo Alto, Cal.

Mrs. Fernald has taken a leading part in the campaign to have women artists admitted to positions in symphony orchestras on the Coast. She is active in national and local politics, becoming a candidate for Congress on the Democratic ticket in 1916, running against the present congressman, Julius Kahn, from the San Francisco district; she was elected and served as chairman of music at the National Democratic Convention at San Francisco in 1920, and her counsel is sought on matters of political moment. She is an ex-state treasurer of the Daughters of the American Revolution of California, a regent of Esperanza Chapter, and a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Mrs. Fernald is the mother of two sons; the elder of the two is in the U. S. Army and the younger resides with her at Palo Alto, at 915 Waverly Street. While the greater portion of her time and energy is occupied by her musical work, she is always interested in all public-spirited movements that make for the betterment of the community.

From Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California,  published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 914

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