Edward Lea Marsh and Elizabeth D.G. Moss

When Edward Lea Marsh married Elizabeth D. G. Moss, the society page of the Sandusky Daily Star reported that the bride and groom represented two of Sandusky’s largest and best known families.

Edward Lea Marsh was the son of Edward H. Marsh and Caroline Mackey Lea. Edward’s grandfather, Edward Lockwood Marsh, was a pioneer manufacturer of plaster of Paris in Ohio.

Edward Lea Marsh’s father, Edward H. Marsh, also in the plaster business, was a personal friend of President William Howard Taft. Elizabeth D. G. Moss was the daughter of banker Charles H. Moss and his wife, the former Elizabeth Griswold Lane. Elizabeth D. G. Moss’s grandfather William Griswold Lane and her great-grandfather Ebenezer Lane were both well respected judges in Erie County, Ohio.

The couple was married at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles H .Moss on Wayne Street in Sandusky. The Moss drawing room was decorated with palms and ferns. The two ministers who officiated at the wedding were Rev. Winfield Baer, rector of Grace Episcopal Church, and Rev. Dr. Gilbert of Southport, an uncle of the bride. The bridal party was made up of the best man, Vaughn McFall; ushers, Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Perkins, Mr. McKinley, and Mr. Hargrave; maid of honor, Miss Emeline Moss; and bridesmaids, Miss Ethel Mack, Miss Adah Kunz, Miss Knapp, and Miss Carrie Marsh.

While not all the individuals in the wedding party have been identified, the bridal party is pictured below, in a photograph taken by W.A. Bishop. Edward Lea Marsh is the young man seated in front. His bride, Elizabeth D. G. Moss Marsh, is the third person in the second row.

Emeline Moss (later Mrs. Ira Krupp) is the second person in the third row. Caroline Lea Marsh, sister of the groom, is the fourth person in the third row.

The wedding guests were served dinner in the Moss dining room, and each guest received a box of wedding cake, decorated with the monogram M M. After the wedding dinner, the couple left for their cottage at Plaster Bed in Ottawa County. Later they were to take a wedding trip to Black Hall, Connecticut. Pictured below are the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Edward Lea Marsh in Plaster Bed in Portage Township of Ottawa County.

When future President William Howard Taft visited Sandusky on September 8, 1908, Edward Lea Marsh was standing next to Mr. Taft in a photograph taken that day. (to Mr. Taft’s left.)

Edward Lea and Elizabeth Marsh had two daughters. One of them is pictured with her first grade class in Sandusky about 1910. Elizabeth Griswold Marsh is third individual from the right in the second row.

Helen Hanson wrote in At Home in Early Sandusky that Edward Lea and Elizabeth Marsh moved to Lyme, Connecticut in the 1920’s. Edward Lea Marsh died on November 21, 1937 in Old Lyme, Connecticut. An obituary for Mr. Marsh appeared in the November 22, 1937 issue of the Sandusky Daily News. He was survived by his wife , son, and two daughters, and a sister. Edward Lea Marsh had just been to Sandusky earlier that month, while on a business trip with the United States Gypsum Company. He had visited with many of his old friends at that time, and appeared to be in excellent health. Mrs. Marsh died in Connecticut in 1960. While many members of the Moss, Marsh, and Lane families are buried at Oakland Cemetery in Sandusky, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Lea Marsh were buried in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Edward Lea Marsh, Jr., who died in 1996, was an attorney in Connecticut for sixty years, and was elected as State Representative from Old Lyme in 1937. He was Speaker of the House of the Connecticut General Assembly from 1945 to 1946. Edward Lea Marsh, Jr. lived on a pioneer farm in Old Lyme, and one of his cows was “Elsie the Borden Cow,” who was once exhibited at the New York World’s Fair.