Archives West Finding Aid

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.