Archives West Finding Aid

Martha Edgerton was born May 14, 1850, on her grandparent's farm in Tallmadge, Ohio, the first child of Sidney and Mary Wright Edgerton. When the Civil War broke out, Sidney Edgerton was a Republican Congressman from Akron, Ohio. In 1863 President Lincoln appointed him Chief Justice for the new Territory of Idaho. Unable to reach the territorial capital in Lewiston due to the approach of winter, the Edgertons turned north to Bannack, still part of Idaho Territory. He was chosen by the people of eastern Idaho to go to Washington, D.C. to work for the creation of a Montana Territory. He returned to Washington and was successful in his efforts. The Territory of Montana was created on May 26, 1864, and Edgerton was appointed its first governor on June 22. In September 1865, Edgerton returned to Washington, D.C., on territorial business and, believing that his children needed better schooling than was available in Bannack, took the family with him. However, as he had failed to obtain the proper authorization for his departure, he was forced to resign as governor. The family re-settled in Akron, Ohio, where Edgerton resumed his law practice. Martha Edgerton enrolled at Oberlin College to study music, but withdrew from school because of eye strain. In 1873 she traveled back to Montana to visit her cousin Wilbur Fisk Sanders in Helena. Later she returned to Ohio and found employment as a vocal music and piano teacher at the State Institute for the Blind in Columbus. In August 1876, she married fellow teacher Herbert Percy Rolfe. Through the efforts of Wilbur F. Sanders, Rolfe was appointed principal of Helena schools. The Rolfes moved to Helena, where Herbert, in addition to his school principalship, studied law in night school. After Rolfe passed the bar, in 1881, he established his practice in Fort Benton. Rolfe met Paris Gibson, the founder of Great Falls, and helped him survey streets and blocks for the proposed town. He took one lot for himself and moved his growing family to the site and became editor of the Great Falls Leader, the newspaper of the Republican Party in the area. In 1895 Herbert died and Martha assumed the editorship of the paper, in spite of the Republican Party's opposition. Mrs. Rolfe successfully operated the newspaper for a year. In October 1895, Martha married her business manager Theodore Plassmann, who convinced her to sell the paper. In September, 1896, she was widowed again. Martha undertook a series of business ventures, including life insurance sales, poetry writing, and cattle ranching, though none very successfully. She moved frequently during the following years, living with each of her seven children in turn. Mrs. Plassmann became a socialist. She wrote socialist articles for the Missoulian, assisted in the election of Lewis Duncan as mayor of Butte, and participated in a minor way in the Missoula IWW free speech fight. In the 1920s Mrs. Plassmann began writing historical articles for the Great Falls Tribune and the Montana News Association, basing many upon her own experiences and memories augmented by formal research. Martha Edgerton Rolfe Plassmann died on September 25, 1936, in Great Falls, at the age of 86.