He came to Wisconsin Territory in 1846, and located in Milwaukee, living there for seven years, when he moved to the town of Polk and acquired 400 acres of land.
[3] At the time of Rolfe's 1854 election to the Senate, the 4th District consisted of the Towns of Erin, Richfield, Germantown, Jackson, Polk, Hartford, Addison, West Bend, Newark, Trenton, Farmington, Kewaskum and Wayne, in Washington County It had been represented by Baltus Mantz, a Democrat from Meeker who died in office of cholera.
Rolfe was succeeded in 1856 by former incumbent Baruch Schleisinger Weil, a Democrat from Schleisingerville.
Matilda Rolfe died in 1859, by which time the two of them had had four children, three daughters and one son.
Rolfe died on April 1, 1888, at the Rock County Asylum in Johnstown Center, Wisconsin.