Blacks@Dartmouth 1775 to 1960

Since the turn-of-the-century Georgetown had dedicated black doctors, who have served as inspiring role models for their neighbors…Dr. Charles H. Marshall arrived from Virginia in 1894 and opened an office in his home at 2710 P Street. His son, Dr. C. Herbert Marshall, Jr., who attended Dartmouth and graduated from Howard University and later its Medical School, continued that practice next door at 2712 P Street until the mid-1970s.

When interviewed in 1977 by local historical Mary Mitchell, Dr. Marshall talked about the disease prevalent in the so-called 'slum' alley dwellings and his father's dedication to serving even the poorest black families: People would put up big signs, Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, Smallpox or whatever it was. But my father put on his white jacket, go this horse Prince at Palmer's Livery and his buggy, and went anyway to help them. That second Doctor Marshall continued his father's tradition of public service. His son, Charles Marshall, III, fondly remembers his father was the designated spokesman for the black community in the '40s and '50s: By the time I became a teenager, he was widely known as Mr. Georgetown, the unofficial mayor of Georgetown.