James McBurney Gillett was born on May 10, 1816, in New York. He married Eliza Esther Berry, and they had at least four children: Charles, born on March 24, 1841; Euphemia, born around 1844; Mary, born around 1846; and Hattie, born around 1856.
They lived in Hopewell, New York, and Gillett worked as a farmer. By 1850, he owned $4,000 of real estate. A decade later, he owned $6,000 of real estate and $1,300 of personal property, and by 1870, he owned $12,700 of real estate and $3,900 of personal property. By the early 1880s, a local writer considered him a “wealthy farmer.” He died in Hopewell on March 21, 1884.