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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THE GILLILAND FAMILY. – The Gilliland family is of Scotch-Irish descent, and their home was in County down, in the north of Ireland. There were eleven in the family, seven sons and four daughters. Their names were as follows: John, Thomas, Hugh, Adam, Andrew, Robert, James, Jane, Mary, Sarah and Catharine. Three of the elder brothers came to the United States first, all the rest apparently intending to follow, and were on board the vessel when it was getting ready to sail; but when the signal was given to take in the gang-plank, Catharine ran ashore, and refused to accompany her brothers and sisters. Soon afterward, to the great sorrow and indignation of the rest of the family, who were all Presbyterians, and whose ancestors, on both sides (the Gillilands and the Gordons), were also Presbyterians, she married a Catholic, and her name was never again mentioned in the family.
   At an early age, John Gilliland, the father of the Van Wert branch of the family, in company with one of his brothers, went into northwestern Pennsylvania, and there took up what was known as a “Tomahawk right,” that is, they blazed the trees around a piece of land, and this gave them title to it. On their return they were pursued for thirty miles by Indians. Upon reaching the top of one hill and looking back, they could see the Indians coming over the next hill behind them, and the pursuit was only abandoned when they were in sight of Fort DuQuesne, now Pittsburg.[sic] John Gilliland, in his fight, killed a fine horse, and was so disgusted with the results of the trip that he never returned to claim his “right,” but gave his interest to one of his brothers, who improved it; but his descendants are quite numerous in northwestern Pennsylvania and southwestern New York at the present day.
   Two of the brothers went south, married and became slave-holders, much to the regret of the rest of the family, who were greatly opposed to the holding of human beings in bondage. One peculiarity of the family is this – that both males and females retain the family name; and wherever there are Gillilands found, they are Presbyterians, if in reach of a church of that denomination. Of more than fifty families, some in New York, some in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Washington, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, all trace their ancestry back to some one of the ten brothers and sisters whose emigration has been described in the beginning of this sketch.
   John Gilliland, after his escape from the Indians, returned east and lived in Maryland. He served in the Revolutionary war, was at the battle of Yorktown and at the surrender of Cornwallis, being then but little over eighteen years of age. He married Jane Briggs, by whom he had a family of nine children, viz: James, Gordon, John, Thomas, Adam, Robert, Hugh, Nancy (Mrs. Peter Wills), Sarah (Mrs. George Guy) and Jane (Mrs. Theopilus King). John Gilliland was born in 1763 and died in 1826, and his wife was born in 1775 and died in 1858.
   James Gordon Gilliland, named after Lord Gordon, of Ireland, was born May 7, 1800, at Hagerstown, Md., where he lived until he was twenty-two years of age, when he learned the trade of millwright. After his father’s death he removed his mother’s family to Adams county, Pa. There he worked at his trade, and afterward learned that of a miller, which he followed until he moved to Ohio. In 1828 he married Margaret Lawson, who is still living (1896) in Van Wert county, at the age of eighty-seven years. To them were born nine children, viz: Elmira Frances (Mrs. W. H. McCoy), Ann Eliza (Mrs. James Montgomery), Thaddeus Stevens, Harriet (Mrs. J. J. McMillen), Susan Mary (Mrs. G. G. Parrott, of Mercer county), Josephine (Mrs. D. S. Patterson, of Crestline, Ohio), Oscar Lawson (died in 1866, aged twenty), Phebe Ophelia (Mrs. J. M. Ocheltree, of Homer, Ill.), and Amanda (wife of D. P. Dunathan).
   In 1833 James Gordon Gilliland, in company with a man named Wise, with whom he had worked at the millwright trade, came west to look up a location for homes for themselves, walking from Gettysburg, Pa., to Fort Wayne, Ind., and back again, averaging over thirty miles per day for the entire trip, and one day walking forty-five miles. They thought for a time they would locate at Findlay, Ohio, but they found that the settlers’ great dread, milk sickness, was there, so they pushed on to Fort Wayne. There they selected a location, and returned home to make arrangements for the removal of their families. Mr. Wise concluded to remain east, and Mr. Gilliland was two years in making his arrangements. All his goods and his family he brought with him as far as Bucyrus, Ohio, in a one-horse wagon. There he traded his horse for a yoke of oxen, but soon found out he had made a poor bargain, as one of them had the trembles (milk sickness). He therefore left his family at Bucyrus and started on to Fort Wayne, but on account of high water in the streams was unable to reach Fort Wayne, and he concluded to enter land in Ridge township, and returned to Bucyrus for his family. The land he selected was the east half of section No. 9. It was covered with black walnut, white ash and hard maple, and as the Indians burned the woods over every year, there was no underbrush, and on the whole it was calculated to captivate a home-seeker. He also entered 160 acres east of the infirmary, now owned by William Johnson. Of this he gave eighty acres to Robert and Hugh, his brothers, for keeping their mother and sisters, and sold the other eighty acres to Adam Gilliland on time. The next spring they sold the 160 acres for $1,000, and bought the half-section now known as the Adam and Hugh Gilliland farms.
   After reaching his new home, on the last day of July, 1835, he still found trials and hardships to encounter. His stock of provisions running short, he went to Allen county and bought roasting ears, took them home and grated them on a grater made out of a tin bucket. Later in the season he went to Piqua to mill, that being the nearest point, and bought corn at a dollar a bushel, being a week in making the round-trip with his ox-team. On one occasion he went on horseback to Findlay to buy some crocks and dishes. On his return he lost his way in the woods; lay down to rest and sleep until the moon should rise, and was awakened by some animal smelling of his face.  Springing to his feet, a wolf ran away, and set up a howl that made his hair stand on end. When the moon rose he found his way home. After this a mill was built at Fort Wayne. He and his brothers then cut a road through to that place, and for several years all the milling was done there, only four days being required to make the round trip, if the milling were properly done; but some times, on account of the great number of persons collecting at the mill at the same time, a man had to wait two weeks. On an occasion of this kind at Fort Wayne, when the ground around the mill for acres was covered with teams waiting for their turn, Mr. Gilliland, by going down town and buying a gallon of brandy, which he quietly hid in the bran, informing the miller of the fact, succeeded in getting his own grist ground during the night, notwithstanding the pretended opposition of the miller, and was on his way home by daylight next morning.
   Mr. Gilliland was afterward elected treasurer of the county, and when he made his settlement with the state, traveled to Columbus and back on horseback. Money being then very scarce, he adopted a system of currency of his own, viz.: taking all kinds of furs at their market value in place of money. Sometimes three-fourths of the week’s receipts for taxes were in furs. The money that was collected for taxes he carried about his person, or secreted it where no one but himself knew the place.
   Not long after coming to the county, Mr. Gilliland, Smith Hill and John Marks, together with their wives, organized a church, and had services each Sunday, the meeting being held in their respective houses. On one occasion Mr. Gilliland and his wife, having started to Hill’s to attend class, it occurred to him that he had better return and conceal what money he had on hand – several hundred dollars in gold. The money was secreted by being placed under the puncheon floor of his house. Upon returning from the class meeting he discovered that the chest, in which he had been in the habit of keeping the money, had been broken and emptied of its contents, but of course the money had not been found. Upon looking around he saw the imprint of a peculiarly shaped hand-made shoe, and not long afterward found out who wore the shoe, in this way discovering the would-be robber; but he never informed the public who the thief was, he and his brothers being the only ones who knew. However, he never had anything to do with the man who wore the peculiarly shaped shoe, though neighbors for twenty years.
   Notwithstanding that the county was democratic and he was a whig, he was elected several terms county commissioner, without opposition. Oliver Stacey, one of the early settlers, having some business to transact with the commissioners, on one occasion, when he came out of the courthouse, remarked:  “Well, we’ve got 100 commissioners in our county!” On being asked to explain, he said that he had “found Gordon Gilliland doing all the business, and the other two sitting round doing nothing, and that if one and two naughts did not make 100, he could not count!”
   Mr. Gilliland was very fond of hunting, but would never take his fall hunt until the last load of corn was in the crib. He always brought home with him, from a hunting trip, a goodly stock of honey and venison. One day, when appraising land, he shot four wolves, and at another time he killed a bear within 100 yards of his house. He had many warm friends among the Wyandot Indians, and they seldom returned to Van Wert county without making him a visit. He was also equally popular among his white neighbors, and it may be truthfully said that few men pass through life with as many warm friends, and as few enemies, as he. He was a member of the Presbyterian church, and a most earnest worker for the cause of religion. His death occurred October 2, 1862, when he was sixty-two years of age.

-transcription by Kate Maynard, 2012