Little is known of Joseph Head Marshall because he burned most of his confidential papers, and other "very important" papers were destroyed by his son's widow. He corresponded with Edward Jenner and apparently introduced vaccination to British sailors and civilians in Mediterranean countries prior to 1801. According to great-grandson Joseph Whitman Bailey, he worked as a secret courier in 1815 between Murat, Fouche, Napoleon, and the British, promoting the restoration of the house of Bourbon.
Later Marshall worked as a British secret agent, and his second wife Elizabeth Golding Elrington (1791-1847), the mother of 12 of his children, was allegedly also a secret agent or spy. Marshall was given the title Baron d'Avray despite the fact there was already a titled d'Avray family. His eldest son Joseph de Brett (1811-1871) lost his fortune and called himself simply Joseph Marshall d'Avray. The title was taken up again by his grandson Loring Woart Bailey, Jr.
Isaac Bailey was a lawyer and editor from Providence, Rhode Island. In 1810 he married Jane Whitman (1793-1886), and they had 3 children: Jacob Whitman Bailey (1811-1856), William Mason Bailey (1815-1897), and Samuel Emerson Bailey (d. 1846). Jane Whitman Bailey's second husband, George Keely, was a professor at Colby College.
Jacob Whitman Bailey went to work in a Providence bookstore at the age of 12. In 1828 he enrolled in the United States Military Academy at West Point, where, in 1834, he became assistant professor of chemistry. The next year he married Maria Slaughter of Culpeper, Virginia, and they had four children: Maria Whitman (1836-1852), Samuel Slaughter (1838-1860), Loring Woart (1839-1925), and William Whitman (1843-1914).
In 1838 Jacob was promoted to professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. He also worked in the field of microbiology, collaborating with Irish botanist William Henry Harvey and exchanging specimens with Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg and Friedrich Traugott Kutzing.
He occasionally wrote poetry and exchanged poetic riddles and solutions with Maria Mayo Scott, the wife of General Winfield Scott. His daughter Maria also wrote poetry and sketched. In July 1852, while on holiday, Jacob, his wife Maria, his daughter Maria, and his son William were caught in one of the worst shipping disasters of the century, the burning of the "Henry Clay". Only he and William survived.
Loring Woart Bailey and William Whitman Bailey, children of Jacob Whitman and Maria (Slaughter) Bailey, both became science professors. William Whitman Bailey remained in the United States. He volunteered for the Union Army during the Civil War, but was discharged for medical reasons. He studied at Brown and became professor of Botany there after years of holding temporary appointments. In 1881 he married Eliza Randall Simmons. William wrote articles on botany, poems, and prose. His daughter Margaret Emerson Bailey (1885-1949), a civic politician and writer, published poems, novels, a gardening book, and a guide to good manners.
Loring Woart Bailey attended Harvard University and completed graduate work in chemistry at both Brown and Harvard. While at university he studied under Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louis Agassiz, and Asa Gray; edited his father's letters; wrote his biography; prepared a family genealogy; and wrote a paper based on his father's microbiological investigations.
At Harvard he worked with Josiah Cooke, who facilitated his hiring by the University of New Brunswick to fill the position of professor of chemistry and natural science left vacant by the death of James Robb. Relocating to Fredericton, New Brunswick, in 1861, Bailey later taught geology and biology. He corresponded with Benjamin Silliman, William Henry Harvey, R. K. Greville, O. N. Rood, and H. L. Smith. During the early years, Bailey suffered from a sense of scientific isolation.