70 Years in Cody: The Life and Times of Martha Marston Newton

Martha Marston lived in Cody for nearly seventy years, but her early roots were on the seafaring coast of Maine. She was born in 1885 to George Gilbert Marston and Hattie Patrick, during Maine’s heyday as a fishing and shipping center along the busy intercoastal waterway between Boston and Canada. Lobster, sardines, scallops, and mussels from her hometown served international markets.

Her grandfather, Captain Gilbert Burton Marston, owned half of a 58-foot, 43-ton ship and once sailed around Cape Horn to California before returning to the Atlantic coast. While in the Caribbean in 1858, he died at age thirty in the Dominican Republic. Family lore holds that he succumbed to yellow fever. His sons, Charles and George Gilbert, chose not to follow him to sea.

Charles Marston left Maine in search of opportunity in California and Nevada, then established a 160-acre homestead at Marquette, Wyoming, in 1893. He encouraged his younger brother George Gilbert to join him, and in 1900 Gilbert made the journey west, temporarily leaving behind his wife Hattie and their three children, including fourteen-year-old Martha. After arriving in Red Lodge by train, Hattie and the children were met by Charles and Gilbert, who brought them by wagon to their new home in Marquette.

Tragedy struck soon after. George was killed in a wagon accident when his horses were spooked during another trip to Red Lodge. Now left a widow with three children, Hattie married her brother-in-law, Charles.

Martha left Wyoming to attend high school in Nebraska and later studied in Maine and Chicago. She earned her nursing degree from the Illinois Training School for Nurses in Chicago in 1910 and soon returned to Cody to begin her career.

When the construction of the Buffalo Bill Reservoir forced Marquette residents to abandon their homesteads, the Marston family relocated to Cody. The 1910 census lists Martha, age twenty-three, living on Alger Avenue with her mother and stepfather and working as a professional nurse. Around this time, she worked with Dr. Frances Lane, Cody’s first female physician. Family stories recall that the two women once took a pack trip together through Yellowstone’s Thorofare.

This was a time period when her stepfather Charles Marston guided hunters, engineers, and artists into the Absaroka Mountains with his team of pack horses. Marston Pass and Marston Creek, located on the Upper South Fork of the Shoshone, still bear his name.

In 1912, Martha married Alex Liddiard, the son of a South Fork rancher and judge. Alex operated a bus and trucking business in Cody, and after his death four years later, Martha managed the business herself. Following her husband’s death, she lived for a time with her parents before marrying Tom Kane, Cody’s town marshal, in 1921. Kane became involved in Martha’s transit business and is pictured in the photograph below alongside Charles Marston and their Yellowstone touring bus.

Their marriage lasted seven years. Tom Kane died in 1928 after a long illness. The Cody Enterprise reported that he had moved to Wyoming years earlier “seeking the higher altitudes in the hope of improving his health.” His obituary described him as “a man who saw much, did lots, but talked very little.” Once again, Martha found herself widowed. The 1930 census lists her living briefly with her parents in their home on Bleistein Avenue.

But for the next two decades, Martha lived independently in downtown Cody, owning her home and working both as a nurse and as manager of the transit business. In 1950, at age sixty-three, she married seventy-six-year-old Earle Ernest (“E.E.”) Newton, a lifelong Cody resident and founder of the Springdale Ranch (now Mooncrest Ranch). Newton was the son of S.S. and Eliza Newton, patriarchs of one of Cody’s most well-known pioneer families.

Martha outlived her third husband by about seven years. In her later years she continued to play the organ for the Presbyterian Church and was active in the Park County Historical Society. She died in February 1969 and was buried at Riverside Cemetery in Cody.

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