Archives West Finding Aid

Orson Nixon Newman (1835-1921) was born in Orleans County, New York. After completing his education he settled in Michigan where he operated a lumbering business. In 1863, he arrived in Bannack, Montana Territory where he worked briefly in mining before taking up farming in the Madison Valley. He and his family left for California in 1869 and then returned to Montana in 1875 where they lived briefly in Gallatin County. The Newman family moved again in 1878 to Coulson in the Yellowstone Valley and again took up farming. The location of their farm was about two and one half miles from the depot at Billings, and during the 1880s they sold garden truck to W.A. Perry, the purchasing agent for the newly constructed Northern Pacific railway. The Newman farm was near a ford on the river and many Indians camped near the area as a result. In this context, Orson met Plenty Coups with whom he maintained a long friendship. In 1858 Newman married Elizabeth Matilda Tripp and the couple had 11 children: Burton Lyon; Asa Dow; Edwin M.; William Marvin; Albert Alonzo; Charles Henry; Abe Benton; Sarah Jane, and Mary A. Newman. Mary married William J. Scott, an early resident of Billings and the owner of several businesses in the city during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their son, William N. Scott, is the donor of these papers.