Archives West Finding Aid

Gillette E. Van Buren was born George Van Buren in Wisconsin in August of 1851. By 1880 he lived in Carleton, Nebraska, with his wife Mary and their two children, Florence and Richard. By 1885, the couple had moved to Stanton, Nebraska and had two more children, George Albert Jr. and Mary. According to family members, Gillette left his children with relatives in Nebraska after Mary’s untimely death in June 1885.

The widower married again in 1888 in Wyoming, having changed his name from George to Gillette. He and his second wife Katherine had six children: Carrie, Grace, Daniel, Frederick, Gillette, and Frank. In 1890 and his family settled on a tract of land near the Rattlesnake Creek north of Missoula, Montana. Van Buren wrote for many local newspapers and Democratic Party publications, including the Western Democrat, Montana Silverite (later the Montana Fruit-Grower), and the Missoula Democrat. Family members report that Van Buren served as a scout during the Indian Wars in Texas and Nebraska. He penned this diary in 1898 while living in the Hellgate Township of Missoula County. Van Buren committed suicide on January 18, 1903 at his cabin in the Rattlesnake Valley. He was 53 years old.