To men who have labored to open the country and who have continued in the noble work of improvement and building it up the reward of prosperity and affluence is due which is now being felt in the reservation country and as a leader in the lines mentioned we are to place the subject of this sketch.
Martin B. Malmoe was born in central Norway, on February 10, 1860, being the son of Michael and Anna Malmoe, natives of the same place. The family came from Trondhjen to Quebec, when Martin was six years old, being five weeks on the ship. Thence they went to Montreal, Chicago and finally to Red Wing, Minnesota. Our subject was the oldest’ of six children and grew up on a farm, acquiring his education from the public schools.
In 1885, he came to Cheney, Washington, and took up farming. In the spring of 1895, he came to Latah and on November 18, of the same year, he located his present place about three miles northeast from Nez Perce. Being one of the very first, he secured a choice piece of land and the improvements since have been equal to the fertility of the soil. He hauled his first lumber from the mountains twenty-five miles away. Mud and snow and rain were to be contended with and all the hardships of the pioneer beset him around. Of his first crop, he took twenty sacks to Lewiston to mill but got there with only nine and nine days were consumed in the trip, although the distance was but fifty-five miles. Mr. Malmoe’s house stands by the famous Lolo trail and he erected the first lumber house in the locality. In 1901, Mr. Malmoe bought one hundred and sixty acres more and the entire estate is in a high state of cultivation. He has labored with great wisdom and thrift and the result is the gratifying prosperity that is evident on every hand.
On November 29, 1894, Mr. Malmoe married Miss Daisy B., daughter of Marion M. and Elizabeth Nobles, who crossed the plains with ox teams in an early day to Mendocino County, California, where they now reside. Mrs. Malmoe was taken by her uncle, A. H. Noble, seven months after birth, which occurred on September 5. 1877. She was one of twelve children and came to Latah with her uncle in 1883. Mr. Noble now lives on the reservation. Five children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Malmoe, Jesse A., Orin A., Hazel I., Roy E. and Daisy B. Mr. Malmoe went fifteen miles to get a machine to thresh his first crop and he still has a few sacks of this wheat, which is hard No. 1. He raises some fine Percheron horses, having a first class stallion and some breeding mares.
Mr. Malmoe is a member of the Masonic order and of the M. W. A. in Nez Perce and he stands well in the community, being a man of integrity and worth.
Back to: Nez Perce Biographies
Source: An Illustrated History of Northern Idaho, Embracing Nez Perce, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone Counties, Western Historical Publishing Company, 1903