Donald Gillette

Donald Gillette, a retired millwright and union official, came to Charlottesville in 2007 with his wife, Margaret, and his cousins Phyllis Williams and Jeniece Johnson.  Phyllis Williams had, in 2006, been the first descendant of Edward and Jane Gillette to make contact with the Getting Word project.  She had been researching her Gillette ancestors without knowing of their connection to Monticello.  Don Gillette’s father, Harry Gillette, had left Albemarle County after the death of his father Moses Gillette.  He never spoke about his Virginia past, although father and son did at one time visit the family graveyard northwest of Charlottesville.