HISTORY OF
DAKOTA TERRITORY

BY

GEORGE W. KINGSBURY
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SOUTH DAKOTA
ITS HISTORY AND ITS PEOPLE

EDITED BY
GEORGE MARTIN SMITH, B.A., A.M.
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BIOGRAPHICAL
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ILLUSTRATED
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VOLUME V
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CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1915

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W. H. AND SAMUEL G. GILLILAND.

   W. H. and Samuel G. Gilliland are the owners of valuable landed interests in Yankton county, comprising five hundred and seventy acres on which at one time was established the camp of Chief Smutty Bear, thus making it one of the historic sections of the state. Their interests are carefully conducted, sound business methods being displayed in all that they undertake. The brothers are natives of Warren county, Illinois, and sons of D. J. and Susan B. (Line) Gilliland. The father was a native of Big Stone Valley, Pennsylvania, and on leaving that state removed to the west. He was married in Illinois and for many years resided in Warren county, where both he and his wife were highly esteemed, being members of the Presbyterian church there.
   The sons attended the public schools, W. H. Gilliland puirsuing his education in that manner to the age of twelve years, after which he concentrated his energies upon farm work, assisting his father. In 1880 he left Illinois and made his way to Yankton county, South Dakota, where he went upon the preemption claim of his brother, John Albert Gilliland, who died in the year 1908. When W. H. Gilliland came to the west he was accompanied by his brother, Samuel G. Gilliland, and they have since been associated in business. At the time of the memorable flood of 1881, W. H. Gilliland was working on a steamboat and for four days stayed upon a bar in the river. His brother, Samuel G., attended Yankton College. He was married in Yankton county in June, 1907, to Miss Clara Rudel and they now have four children: Sammy, six years of age; Willie, aged five; Susan B., who was named for her grandmother Gilliland, and David James. W. H. Gilliland lives with his brother, S. G. Gilliland, and they occupy a very creditable position among the representative farmers and stock raisers of Yankton county. They are active, energetic and progressive and along well defined lines of labor have reached a position of success.

-- transcription by Kate Maynard, 2010

Notes: In the 1900 census for Yankton, SD, the Gilliland household was recorded as follows:
D. J. Gilliland, born 1831, aged 68 yrs, with wife Susan, born 1837, aged 63 yrs; (twins?) Alice and Laura, aged 43 yrs; son John, 41; son William, 38; son Edward, 44; and son Samuel, 22. D. J. Gilliland born Pennsylvania while wife was Illinois-born, but her grandparents were born in Pennsylvania. All of their children were born in Illinois.
  I believe D. J. and Susan Gilliland had another son, Rankin, who died in a drowning accident in Yankton in 1890, at the age of seventeen. The absence of 1890 census records, of course, means that I cannot confirm this without some other official records. A South Dakota newspaper report of Rankin’s drowning is in the collection of obituaries and death records in the Gilliland Trails library.