Archives West Finding Aid

David J. Bailey was born in Butts County, Georgia on January 16, 1844. He lived in Alabama and Kentucky before clerking in a store in Evansville, Indiana during the Civil War. In August 1865, he journeyed overland to Montana Territory with a freighting outfit, traveling via Fort Kearney, South Platte, and Cache-la-Poudre to Laramie Plains and Green River before going north to Virginia City. He first ranched in the Virginia City area but afterwards worked in a variety of positions at various locations in Montana including: Merchant at Twin Bridges (Madison County); deputy treasurer (Gallatin County); farmer (Meagher County); Clerk and treasurer (Missoula County). He married Rosa Pierce in 1864, and they had one daughter, Bertha, who later married E. J. Owenhouse, the father of James Owenhouse. After the death of Rosa Bailey in 1871, Bailey remarried and had four children with his second wife, Josie M. Pauley Bailey.