JOSEPH MARSH IS DEAD.

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Was in Hotel Business Thirty

Years.

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Apoplexy Seized Him While Engaged

in a Checker Game---Once

G. A. R. Commander.

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Joseph Marsh, proprietor of the Marsh House, and one of the very well known business men of Ottawa, died suddenly this afternoon in the hotel office. Mr. Marsh was apparently in good health this morning and ate a hearty dinner. After coming from the dining room, he sat down at a table in the office to play a game of checkers with a traveling salesman. Suddenly he began to gasp and his head fell backward. His daughter, Miss May Marsh, who was in the office at the time, and the traveling salesman, rushed to his side but death had come. He was carried to a room and Dr. A. Haggart was called. He pronounced the cause of death as apoplexy. Death came at 1:30.

Uncle Joe Marsh as he was commonly called by all who knew him, was 75 years old and was born August 15, 1836, in Pickaway county, O. He came to Ottawa in 1868 and has conducted a hotel here for over 30 years. The hotel known as the Marsh House has been conducted by him for 22 years in the present location. He was a veteran of the Civil War; having served almost four years in the army. He was a first lieutenant of the 107th Illinois infantry, Company G. He was commander of the local G. A. R. Post for one term.

Mr. Marsh has been twice married and is survived by his last wife and eleven children. The children of the first marriage are Mrs. Robert Dilliand, who lives in Nebraska, and George Marsh, who lives in Oklahoma. The children by the second wife are Mrs. A. C. Maxson, Misses Minnie and May Marsh, Charles, John and Mac Marsh all of this city, Joseph Marsh of Kansas City, Mrs. J. B. Hamilton of Kansas City, Kansas, and Mrs. J. A. King of Marceline, Mo. All of the children have been notified of the death and will probably be here by tonight or tomorrow. Mrs. King is visiting in Kansas City now with her sister, Mrs. Hamilton, and was at the Hamilton home when the telegram announcing her father’s death came.

Mr. Marsh was married here Nov. 19, 1869, to Sarah K. Woods, who survives him. He bought the present Marsh House from the Quenemo Hotel Co., November 15, 1889. Formerly he was in the hotel business at the old North Ottawa Hotel building at Main and Tecumseh streets. Mr. Marsh came to Ottawa at the close of the war, and for a limited time piled his trade as a carpenter. Later he took up farming, locating on a farm on Eight Mile Creek, and then on one near Homewood. In the early eighties he entered the hotel business. He had planned to attend the G. A. R. reunion at Lawrence with his wife, and was to have left Ottawa this afternoon at 4 o’clock.

The funeral arrangements have not yet been made.