Martin C. Needham Mora County, New Mexico

Martin C. Needham, a rancher residing nine miles from Watrous, has been identified with this Territory for twenty-five years, having come here in government employ in 1880. Mr. Needham is a native of Oakland, California, born November 8, 1857 and was reared in Grundy County, Illinois, to which place he was taken when three years old. At the age of twenty he went to Colorado. There, in the vicinity of Ouray, he worked as steamfitter until 1880, when he came to New Mexico as a machinist for the government, and was stationed at Fort Union till the abandonment of that post in 1891. While at the fort he bought an undivided interest in the Mora grant, and since 1891 has made his home on the ranch, giving his attention to the cattle business. Also he is agent for the Butler interests here, which represent eighty-five per cent of the grant, and since he has acted in this capacity he has ejected from the grant no less than thirty-five squatters, paying them, of course, for the improvements they had made on their claims, and at this writing there are five injunctions pending. September 26. 1887, Mr. Needham married Miss Anna Riley, and their family consists of one son and two daughters: Stephen, Mary Agnes and Margaret.

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Source: History of New Mexico, Its Resources and People, Volume II, Pacific States Publishing Co., 1907.