HISTORY
OF
VENANGO COUNTY,
PENNSYLVANIA.
_____________

ITS PAST AND PRESENT,

INCLUDING

ITS ABORIGINAL HISTORY; THE FRENCH AND BRITISH OCCUPATION OF THE
COUNTRY; ITS EARLY SETTLEMENT AND SUBSEQUENT GROWTH; A
DESCRIPTION OF ITS HISTORIC AND INTERESTING LOCALITIES; ITS
RICH OIL DEPOSITS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT; SKETCHES OF
ITS CITIES, BOROUGHS, TOWNSHIPS, AND VILLAGES; NEIGH-
BORHOOD AND FAMILY HISTORY; PORTRAITS AND
BIOGRAPHIES OF PIONEERS AND REPRESENT-
ATIVE CITIZENS; STATISTICS, ETC., ETC.
_____________

ILLUSTRATED.
_____________

CHICAGO, ILL.:
BROWN, RUNK & CO., PUBLISHERS.
1890

***************

    WILLIAM K. GILLILAND, drawer of deeds, conveyancer, surveyor, etc., Sunville, was born in Potter township, Centre county, Pennsylvania, March 11, 1828, son of Joseph A. and Nancy (Kerr) Gilliland. His grandfather, Joseph Gilliland, was born in New Jersey in 1770, moved to Chester county, this state, in 1796, and subsequently to Union county. In 1805 he moved to Spring Mills, Centre county, where he kept a hotel. He was an active Presbyterian and was elected an elder in the Sinking Creek church in 1815. He reared seven sons and two daughters, the only one of whom now living is Samuel of Centre county.
    Joseph A. Gilliland, father of our subject, was born in Chester county in 1796. In 1805 his father moved to Centre county, where he was reared, married, and followed farming. In October, 1838, he moved to Venango county, locating in Canal township seven miles west of Franklin on the Meadville and Susquehanna pike, where he purchased a large farm and in connection with its cultivation kept a temperance hotel. His wife’s death in 1844 broke up his home and he gave up the farm to accept the superintendency of a section of that turnpike. He subsequently moved to Franklin, where he died March 10, 1861. He was a Democrat, and an elder of the Presbyterian church. His children were named as follows:  Mary J., Mrs. Smith Kelley of Pleasantville; Catherine C., Mrs. Isaiah Corbitt of Franklin; Margaret I., Mrs. Johnson Alexander, who died June 14, 1852; William K., Joseph S., who died at Davenport, Iowa, in January, 1853, and John Mc., of Franklin.
    Our subject came to Venango county when five years of age; he obtained his education at the log school house, and in 1838 received one year’s instruction at a select school taught by his uncle in Centre county. He served an apprenticeship at the blacksmith trade, after which he worked in Franklin and various other places until 1854, when he settled in Sunville. On account of an accident that made him a cripple for several years he abandoned his trade in 1859. In 1851* he traveled through the western states, Illinois and Iowa. In 1863 he was elected a justice of the peace and has since held that position. In 1871 he was elected county auditor; in 1883 he was appointed by the court to fill a vacancy, and was re-elected to the office in 1884. He was married in 1852 to Miss Nancy Foster, daughter of John Foster of Canal township, by whom he had ten children, seven of whom are living: Levi S., a school teacher; Foster W., also a teacher; Effie G., wife of Professor J. D. Goodwin; John A., who is employed at farming; Cyrus A., a teacher; Mary A., and William K. Mr. Gilliland has been an earnest Republican and with his wife belongs to the Sugar Creek Presbyterian church, of which he is an elder.

-transcription by Kate Maynard, 2013

*Although the text states that Gilliland traveled through Illinois and Iowa in 1851, the timeline seems a bit off; I wonder if the year should have read 1861 rather than 1851.