Passage I

A Life Lived on the Montana Frontier

In 1863, five adventurers camping in a gulch high in the Rocky Mountains happened upon one of the largest gold deposits in North America. Within a year, 10,000 people had rushed to Alder Gulch, the Montana Territory was established, and nearby Virginia City became it's first incorporated town and territorial capital. (3)

In 1871, fifteen-year-old Sarah Gammon—an African American born in North Carolina and then raised by her aunt in Tennessee after the Civil War—was hired by Judge Murphy to help care for his three children on the long trek by covered wagon to the Montana Territory. Judge Murphy had been called to serve as the magistrate of Virginia City.

Once settled in Virginia City and accustomed to life in this gold-rush boomtown,Sarah found work as a hotel chambermaid. In 1873, she married William Brown, but her husband passed away less than a decade later.

In 1884,Sarah remarried, this time to a successful man who was twenty years older than she and who was also a gold miner, Stephen Bickford. The Bickfords were an enterprising couple. Purchasing two-thirds of the Virginia City Water Company in 1888. On their stewardship, the city water service improved. They replaced the hollowed-out logs used to transport water with metal pipes, they allowed for the introduction of indoor plumbing.

[1] Keeping change from the sale of farm products in a sugar bowl, Sarah also ran the family farm selling fruit, vegetables, poultry, and dairy products to people in the community. [2] After her husband's death in 1900, she continued to oversee both operations. [3] She took a correspondence course in business management and then acquired the remaining one-third of the water company, becoming the sole proprietor. [4] With help from two of her children, Elmer and Virginia,Sarah managed the company until her death in 1931. (12)

Sidestepped by progress and frozen in time Virginia City is now a living historical museum preserving, a slice of frontier life. As one of the state s earliest settlers and businesspeople, Sarah Gammon Bickford holds an important place in its history.