Born in September 1849 in Ohio to James and Margaret Eccles, Martha Bullock’s proper name was Marguerite. One of six children, the family moved often between Ohio, Pennsylvania, Canada, and Michigan.

Martha grew up as a schoolteacher in Tecumseh, Michigan, and when she met Seth Bullock there, they immediately fell for each other. In 1874, they married in Salt Lake City, Utah. The young bride returned to Helena, Montana, with her husband, who had been elected the sheriff of Lewis and Clark County the year before. In addition to “playing” lawman, Seth also worked as an auctioneer and entrepreneur, entering into a hardware business with Sol Star.

In 1876, the couple had their first child, a daughter named Margaret, but usually called “Madge.” That same year, Seth and his partner, Sol, began to see irresistible opportunities in the booming mine camp of Deadwood in Dakota Territory. After deciding to move their business, Bullock sent Martha and their infant daughter back to stay with her parents in Michigan, knowing the lawless Deadwood was no place for a family.

Bullock and Star then loaded their wagons with Dutch ovens, fry pans, chamber pots, dynamite, axes, rope, picks, shovels, and all manner of other hardware and headed for Deadwood. The business partners arrived in the bustling mining camp on August 1, 1876, and first set up their hardware store in a tent. Later, they bought a lot and a false-front building to house their business. Soon after the new building was completed and the hardware store was up and running, Seth became Lawrence County Sheriff in March 1877 and helped settle the lawless area.

Soon, he sent for his family, and Martha and her young daughter arrived in Deadwood aboard the Cheyenne Stage in July 1878. Soon, the couple had a second daughter, Florence, and soon after, a son, Stanley.

Martha wasted no time and quickly became a pillar of the community, working to enlighten and civilize the rowdy frontier mining camp.

If the couple didn’t already have their hands full enough with their own three children, in May 1881, they took in Seth’s seven-year-old nephew, Douglas Kislingbury. The boy’s father, Lieutenant Frederick F. Kislingbury, married Seth’s sister Agnes in 1867, and the two became Douglas’s parents around 1874.

Unfortunately, Agnes died in 1878, after which Mr. Kislingbury married another of Seth’s sisters the following year. She, too, died. In 1881, when Lieutenant Kislingbury was sent on the Greeley Expedition to the high Arctic, Douglas was sent to live with Seth and Martha. However, Kislingbury would not survive the expedition, for which he was second in command. In 1885, Seth returned young Douglas to family members in New York.

Meanwhile, Martha Bullock helped found the Round Table Club, a ladies’ literary group for which she served as president. In 1895, the Round Table Club founded the Deadwood Public Library. Today, the club is the region’s oldest surviving cultural club. In addition to the Round Table Club, Martha was active in church activities, community events, and numerous other cultural activities throughout her life.

Seth Bullock died of cancer in September 1919 at his ranch in Belle Fourche. Martha lived another 20 years, dying in March 1939. Both are buried at the Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood.

 

©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated September 2026.

Also See:

Seth Bullock – Finest Type of Frontiersman

Solomon Star – A Natural Leader

The Haunted Bullock Hotel

HBO’s Deadwood – Facts & Fiction

Rough & Tumble Deadwood

See Sources.