A PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL
RECORD
OF
ALLEN AND VAN WERT
COUNTIES, OHIO.

CONTAINING BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF MANY

PROMINENT AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS,

TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHIES AND PORTRAITS OF ALL THE

PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES,

AND BIOGRAPHIES OF THE

GOVERNORS OF OHIO.
_______________

CHICAGO
A. W. BOWEN & CO.
1896.

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    S. M. GILLILAND*, son of Adam and Sarah (Shaffner) Gilliland, was born in Ridge township, Van Wert county, Ohio, June 15, 1842, was reared on the home farm, and has made farming his life vocation. At the age of twenty-two years he enlisted in company B, One Hundred and Ninety-second Ohio volunteer infantry, and served until the close of the Rebellion, when he was honorably discharged at Winchester, Va. He then returned to the home of his childhood and resumed farming on the old home place until 1868, when he bought sixty acres of land, which he has since supplemented with sixty additional acres, on which he has made all the improvements. On the 3d day of February, 1870, he was united in marriage with Miss Amanda E. Balyeat, daughter of Jacob and Frances (Thomas) Balyeat, residents of Ridge township, and this union has been blessed by the birth of five children, viz: Homer, who married Flora Johantgen of Ridge township, the remaining four being Ira, Laura, Frances and Jesse. Mr. Gilliland and his family worship at the Methodist church and manifest in their daily walk the sincerity of their belief in that faith. In politics Mr. Gilliland is a democrat, and in 1884 was elected a justice of the peace; during the six years that he performed the functions of this office it may be said that not more than three cases were appealed from his docket, and in no instance was a decision of his reversed. A more extensive notice of the Gilliland family will be found in adjacent parts of this volume, also the genealogy of the Balyeat family will be given upon other pages. Mr. and Mrs. Gilliland are well known citizens throughout Ridge township, and none hold the confidence of the entire community to a greater extent than they, and none take a deeper interest in the matters of education and the moral training of the community. Mr. Gilliland is one of the enterprising and progressive men of his township, and well deserves the high respect in which he is held.

-transcription by Kate Maynard, 2013

*S. M. Gilliland’s forename was Shaffner, after his mother’s family surname.