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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    THADDEUS STEVENS GILLILAND, a highly respected citizen of Van Wert, Ohio, a son of James Gordon and Margaret Gilliland, was born October 27, 1834, in Adams county, Pa., and came to Ohio with his parents in 1835; they settled in Ridge township, Van Wert county, where his boyhood days were spent on the farm. He attended the district school three months every two years – part of the time walking three miles night and morning during the winter. In 1853 he entered Farmers college at College Hill, near Cincinnati. The college was conducted by the Carys – Freeman and Samuel F. During that year Freeman Cary resigned the presidency of the college proper to accept the presidency of the farm department, and Isaac J. Allen was elected president. After leaving college he taught school two winters in Van Wert and Allen counties, and spent two years in the dry-goods trade in Elida, and in 1857 returned to Van Wert county and engaged in clearing up a farm in Ridge township. November 12, 1857, he was married to Ruhannah Baker, daughter of Jacob S. Baker, of Allen county. During 1858, 1859, 1860, he taught school in Van Wert town and left the school-room to enter the army on the first call of the president for volunteers in April, 1861, enlisting for three months. He was chosen orderly sergeant of company E, Fifteenth Ohio volunteer infantry, and served under Gen. McClellan in West Virginia until the expiration of the term of enlistment. He was engaged in the battles of Philippi, Laurel Hill and Carrick’s Ford, and at the latter battle he was in command of the company.  After being mustered out of service he returned home, and with W. C. Scott recruited company H, of the Fifteenth regiment Ohio volunteer infantry, of which company he was made captain and served under Gen. Buell in Kentucky and Tennessee. He was in command of his company in the battle of Pittsburg Landing, in the second day’s fight, and was in the last charge that drove the enemy off the field, charging past the old Shiloh church.
    At the close of the war he engaged in the grain and produce trade in Van Wert, in which he has been engaged ever since. He has paid out more money to the farmers and given employment to more people than any man in the county. His business for several years amounted to over $300,000 a year, and his pay-roll frequently reached over $150 a week. He always made it a rule to pay his hands every Saturday. He united with the Presbyterian church in Van Wert in 1854, and was chosen an elder in 1863; was made a Mason in 1855, in Lima lodge, No. 205, F. & A. M.  He has seen the red men driven from their hunting grounds in the county; the bear, wolves and deer disappear, and fine farms come into existence where once was an almost impenetrable forest. He well recollects when it was forty miles north without a house, and when the nearest neighbors were fifteen miles away; when the nearest mill was at Piqua, and they had to go to Sandusky city for salt; when coonskins passed as currency; saw the first canal boat, the first stage-coach, and the first railroad train that came into the county; can recollect when a school-teacher could get a certificate if he could read, write, and had been through the first four rules in arithmetic and could bound the state of Ohio; recollects when Morse invented the telegraph and how the Philadelphia Dollar newspaper made fun of the idea that men could talk to each other over a wire forty miles long. He was captain of company H, Fifteenth regiment Ohio volunteer infantry, during the Rebellion, and a colonel of the Ohio militia, and served two terms as mayor of Van Wert.
    Ruhannah (Baker) Gilliland, wife of T. S. Gilliland, is the daughter of Jacob S. and Mary Baker and was born in Allen county, Ohio, July 27, 1839. Her parents came to Allen county from Fairfield county, Ohio, about 1835 or 1836, and were formerly from Pennsylvania. Her girlhood was spent on the farm and teaching school until her marriage, in 1857, when she moved with her husband to Van Wert county.

-transcription by Kate Maynard, 2013