Kate’s Notes: Mr. Gilleland's birth name was actually Hugh Thompson Gilleland. No doubt our subject preferred to use his middle  name -Thompson - to set himself apart from the seemingly scores of Hugh Gillilands/Gillelands, in all branches of our trees, who lived during that tme period and throughout the country.

Hugh Thompson Gilleland, born Dec. 9, 1828 in Butler Co., Pa., was a son of John and Selina Thompson Gilleland. He is buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Suffolk, Va., as is his wife, Sarah Jane Glasgow Gilleland. She was born Feb.15, 1832 in Butler Co., Pa., daughter of Robert and Mary Cunningham Glasgow, and died 31 May, 1881. Mr. Gilleland’s obituary is among those in the archives of the Gilliland Trails library.

This entry from “History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America” explains how this Gilleland family came to reside in southeastern Virginia.

HISTORY
of the
Reformed Presbyterian Church 
IN
AMERICA

WITH SKETCHES OF ALL HER MINISTRY, CONGREGATIONS,
MISSIONS, INSTITUTIONS, PUBLICATIONS, ETC.,
AND EMBELLISHED WITH OVER
FIFTY PORTRAITS AND
ENGRAVINGS.
___________

BY 
W. MELANCTHON GLASGOW,
BALTIMORE, MD.
___________

BALTIMORE:
HILL & HARVEY, PUBLISHERS.
1888.
***********

VIRGINIA.

SUFFOLK. A few families from Western Pennsylvania removed to the country below the Chesapeake Bay, and near the town of Suffolk, in the south-eastern corner of Virginia, and were organized as a mission station in November, 1876. They were sustained chiefly by the Philadelphia Presbytery; and the ministers of that court, and the Rev. James Pinkerton supplied them for some time. The mission was disorganized in May, 1881, by the removal of some of the colony, and others going into the United Presbyterian Church. Among the families of this colony were those of John Haslett, John Galbraith, Thompson Gilleland and John Steele.

-- transcritption by Kate Maynard, 2011