Mary Hunter Doane was born in Missouri in 1859, the oldest of six children born to Dr. Andrew Jackson Hunter and his second wife, Susannah. In 1864, Hunter brought his family to Montana Territory where they lived briefly in Virginia City, Helena, and Bozeman. In 1870, Hunter staked a claim to land encompassing a hot spring near the Yellowstone River in present day Park County and there developed a health spa. Mary grew up in Bozeman and at Hunter's Hot Springs before she attended St. Vincent's Academy in Helena in 1876. On December 16, 1878, she married Lieutenant Gustavus Cheyney Doane and traveled with him to a wide variety of military posts in Montana, California, and Arizona prior to his death in 1894. Mary remained a widow for the rest of her life, living in Bozeman and becoming active in a number of historical organizations such as the Society of Montana Pioneers and the Daughters of the American Revolution. She gained a reputation as an "encyclopedia of Montana history" in her later years, and began a friendship with Professor Merrill G. Burlingame that lasted until her death in 1952. Burlingame both transcribed some of her writings and collected original documents from her.
The Mary Doane collection consists of speeches, reminiscences, notes, correspondence, a scrapbook, and an oral history interview documenting Doane's experiences as an Army wife and early Montana pioneer as well as her participation in several lineage societies. The collection provides insight into Doane's role in preserving her husband's legacy as well as the history of frontier Army life and Montana's territorial era.
The papers contain manuscript and typescript speeches, writings, and notes prepared for a variety of audiences, including a 1931 address delivered to the Society of Montana Pioneers relating her childhood journey to Montana Territory and early residence in Virginia City and Helena, an undated reminiscence of her experiences of early frontier Army life, a transcription of an undated paper prepared for the Mount Hyalite Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution on the history of Montana forts, a 1930 speech on historic sites in Montana, and 1935 remarks prepared while serving as president of the Gallatin County Pioneers. There are also a couple folders of notes on Doane's experiences at Fort Ellis, Montana Territory, written in preparation for an address before an unknown group.
Correspondence includes documentation of Doane's attempts to register copyright in her husband's Yellowstone Expedition journal; several letters regarding water claims at Hunter's Hot Springs in Park County, Montana; and membership and budget materials written by Roy Crismas, Secretary-Treasurer of the Society of Montana Pioneers, that were apparently sent to Doane in her capacity as Past President. The Society of Montana Pioneers materials also contain a 1949 list of members.
Additional materials include a transcription of an oral history interview conducted with Merrill Burlingame in 1950 discussing St. Vincent's Academy; a circa 1880s portrait of Mary taken while living at the Presidio, San Francisco; and a dance card for a social held at Fort Assiniboine, Montana Territory, on November 23, 1881. The scrapbook contains news clippings from the 1910s-1920s with a focus on Montana and Gallatin County history, pioneers, and historical events, as well as a number of clippings documenting local and state Daughters of the American Revolution members, events, and conventions.
This collection is open for research.
Speeches, reminiscence, oral history interview, photograph, and ephemera pertaining to Mary Hunter Doane were donated to Special Collections by Merrill G. Burlingame in several different accessions beginning in 1965. This collection incorporates accession numbers 292, 739, 792, and 2045.
Correspondence, speeches, and a scrapbook of clippings were transferred from the Museum of the Rockies (MOR) as part of a large and disparate group of archival materials in June 2000.
This collection was processed 2009 January 30. Two manuscript speeches by Doane were added on August 15, 2005.
While updating description for standards compliance in 2026, it was determined that speeches, notes, correspondence, and and a scrapbook related to Mary Doane, found as added to collection 0851 (MSU Collection on Fort Ellis and Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane) from an unnumbered Museum of the Rockies transfer and not yet described, were better suited to incorporation into this collection. Both collections have been updated to reflect this change.
[Creator Name], [Date of Creation], [Brief Description of Object], Folder [#], Box [#], [Collection Name], [Collection #], Montana State University (MSU) Library, Bozeman, MT
"St. Vincent's Academy"
Efforts by Mrs. Mary L. Doane to get copyright for her husband's diary of the Yellowstone Expedition of 1870 and pension claim from the Veterans administration.