PORTRAIT AND
BIOGRAPHICAL 
RECORD
OF 
ADAMS COUNTY,
ILLINOIS,

CONTAINING

Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens,
TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHIES AND PORTRAITS OF ALL THE
Presidents of the United States
_______________________

CHICAGO:
CHAPMAN BROS.
1892

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WILLIAM E. GILLILAND, M.D., has for twenty years engaged in the practice of medicine at Coatsburg, and is a leading physician of this section in the county. He well deserves representation in this volume. The great-grandfather of our subject, Thomas Gilliland, was born on the Atlantic, while his parents were crossing from Ireland. He was reared on the boundary line between Delaware and Maryland. Having married, he became the father of three sons: Thomas, William and Robert, the last-named being the grandfather of our subject. He emigrated to Kentucky in an early day and lived in a block-house. He was one of Kentucky’s honored pioneers, and was a warm friend of Daniel Boone. In 1827, he emigrated with his family to Illinois, locating in Morgan County, whence he came to Adams County. He was also one of the early settlers of this community, and during his life he participated in several Indian Wars. He lived almost entirely upon the frontier and did much for the advncement and upbuilding of the localities in which he resided. His death occurred in 1854, at the age of eighty-six years.
   The Doctor’s father, William P. Gilliland, was born in Kentucky, in 1805, and accompanied his parents on their emigration to this State. In Morgan County he purchased wild land, and in a log cabin, 16x18 feet, made his home. There he improved and developed a farm, upon which he resided until the spring of 1841, when he came to Mendon. For some years he continued to engage in agricultural pursuits, but is now living a retired life. He married Letitia Curry, who was born in Kentucky, in 1808, and died on the 4th of September, 1890. Like her husband, she was for many years a faithful member of the Methodist Church. Mr. Gilliland is a prominent and influential citizen of this community, and has filled the offices of Justice of the Peace, Supervisor and Collector.
   Dr. Gilliland was the third in order of birth in a family of five sons and four daughters, of whom four sons and one daughter are yet living. He was born January 1, 1833, in the little log cabin in Morgan County. His educational advantages were very meagre, being acquired in log school houses with slab seats and puncheon*, or sometimes only dirt, floors. His training in farm labor, however, was not so meagre. Those who loved hunting had ample opportunity to indulge their taste, and the doctor himself has killed many deer, having probably killed the largest one ever shot in Adams County. For a few terms he engaged in teaching school, but in the earlier years of his manhood devoted the greater part of his attention to farm work.
   In the spring of 1854, on attaining his majority, the Doctor married Sarah E. Moyer, who was born in Pennsylvania, and with her parents came to Illinois in 1851. Her father died at the age of sixty-six years, and her mother is still living in the eighty-third year of her age. The Doctor and his wife have had five children: Annie, wife of Prof. William S. Gray, of Coatsburg; John O. and Henry L., both deceased; Minnie M., wife of W.T. Elliott, of Madison, Wis., a traveling salesman for the Rock Island Plow Company; and William M., who graduated from the Illinois State University, and is a mechanical engineer in the employ of the Harvey Steel Car Company, of Harvey, one of the suburbs of Chicago.
   After his marriage, Dr. Gilliland engaged in farming in Gilmer Township, where he remained for five years. In 1859, he removed to Anderson County, Kan., where he farmed for two years. In the spring of 1862, he returned to this county and again resided upon a farm in Gilmer Township until 1870. For the previous five years he had read medicine and in 1868 entered the Medical College of St. Louis, from which he was graduated in 1870. He then came to Coatsburg, and for twenty-two years has been one of its prominent practitioners. He has also been a member of the Adams County Medical Society for several years. In politics, he is a Democrat, and takes quite an active part in promoting its interests. He once served as Supervisor and has frequently been a delegate to the county and State conventions, but has never been an aspirant for public office. Socially, he has been a Mason for twenty years and Mrs. Gilliland is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
   The Doctor is a self-made man who has acquired a comfortable competence and made himself well informed on all questions of general interest. He is well versed in his profession, keeps abreast with all the discoveries and theories pertatining to the science of medicine, and his recognized skill and ability have accured him a large practice.

*puncheon: as used here describes floors made of split logs

-- contributed and transcribed by Kate Maynard, 2009