Kate’s Notes:  As a relatively newbie in the world of amateur genealogists, there will be many places along the Gilliland Trail where I could rightly be considered little more than a curious stranger. One of those markers would be located in northeastern Georgia, where a cluster of Gillilands from North & South Carolina had settled in early times.
    Certainly, there are Gilliland family genealogists who have for years followed the trail of these Gillilands and they can perhaps answer some questions I have regarding one particular mystery that has piqued my interest for some time now – just who was the Lewellen Gilliland found in the record below for veterans’ gravesites?

GILLILAND, LEWELLEN 
CAPT & ADJ US ARMY 
6 FLA VOL INF
DATE OF DEATH: 07/10/1837 
BURIED AT: SECTION B SITE 504 
SAINT AUGUSTINE NATIONAL CEMETERY 
104 MARINE STREET ST. AUGUSTINE, FL 32084 

    Over the past few years I’ve found myself repeatedly drawn into this mystery and though I’ve gathered bits and pieces of the puzzle, I’ve yet to fit them into a complete picture. But let me start with the record above. From the date and location of his death, I assumed Lewellen died or was killed during the Seminole Wars in Florida. I later confirmed this fact from published sources of the time; a more recent history provides details of how he was killed: 

“Organized and random acts of slave violence peaked during the first several years of the Second Seminole War. In July 1837, a Capt. Gilliland was found dead 150 yards from his horse on the road from Suwannee to Newnansville, his body and his horse both full of buckshot. It was widely believed that runaway slaves in the vicinity were responsible for the murder. In August, two slaves named Tom and John had run away from the plantation of Micajah Dean “for the purpose and with the expectation of joining the Seminole Indians, whom they know to be at war with the Whites.” In midst of their escape, the two fugitive slaves had murdered Gilliland for any provisions they could find on him. Before their execution, the judge reprimanded them for attempting to escape to the Seminoles, a not so subtle message for any others who would contemplate doing so:

“Suppose you had joined the Indians, what would have become of you? They would hardly have treated you well; they would have been afraid to trust you; they would have made you slaves. But if they had not; if they had made you Leaders and Chiefs, what would you have gotten by it? Why, if you escaped death from the hands of white people, you must at the close of the war, have been restored to your master, or sent out of the country, to some far away place, where your condition would be infinitely worse than it ever was here until now.”*

*A People’s History of Florida 1513-1876: How Africans, Seminoles, Women, and Lower Class Whites Shaped the Sunshine State, by Adam Wasserman and Marcos Solis.

    Had Fort Gilliland at Newnansville, Florida, been so named as a memorial to the murdered Capt. Gilliland? It doesn’t appear so, as war reports issued prior to Llewellen’s death refer to a “Fort Gilliland”. In fact, Gilliland – in his role as Adjutant – had issued such war reports that were published in newspapers throughout Georgia.
    I suspect much more about How Fort Gilliland came to be can be found in the following paper:
A History of Newnansville (Fort Gilliland) is the subject of a paper published by The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 53, No 2, Jan. 1975. Titled “Newnansville: A Lost Florida Settlement” by Susan Yelton, the paper may be purchased through JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org/ (Full access at no cost is available through participating libraries.)
    So just how does this record of Lewellen Gilliland connect to northeast Georgia? As it happens I was transcribing some early court/property records from Rabun, Habersham, Jackson and Clark counties in Georgia when I discovered the following records from Rabun County….

From The Athenian
Athens, Georgia
2 Sept 1828
RABUN Sheriff’s Sale. – On the first Tuesday in OCTOBER next, will be sold at the Court-house in the town of Clayton, Rabun county, within the usual hours of sale, the following property, to wit:
Two Hundred and Fifty Acres of Land, more or less, lying on the Tennessee River, known by Lot No. 136, in the 2nd District of Rabun County: levied upon as the property of James Martin, to satisfy a fi. fa. in favour of Lewallen Gilliland, vs. said Martin

From The Athenian
Athens, Georgia
1 September, 1829
RABUN Sheriff’s Sale. – On the first Tuesday in OCTOBER next, will be sold at the Court-house in the town of Clayton, Rabun county, within the usual hours of sale, the following property, to wit:
Five Lots in the Town of Clayton, Nos. not known, one of which has a good dwelling house on it, it being the house wherein L. Gilliland formerly lived; two stud horses, one walnut table, one sideboard, six windsor chairs, three Negroes, Morning a woman 50 or 60 years old, Permela a girl about 17 years old, Milissa a girl about 15 years old, three pair firedogs, six split bottomed chairs, two ovens and lids, one pot, one baker, two fire shovels, one coffee mill, two coffee pots, one pine table, one pot and two pair hooks, three pails, one churn, two waffle irons, one tea kettle, one rocking chair, one coffee pot, one half-gallon measure, one sifter, one stew pan, one looking glass, one large waiter, one pair martingals, five candlesticks, two small waiters, one cradle, one stand of curtains, two smoothing irons, one decanter, one tin trunk, two pitchers, twenty-five plates, one castor, six tea-cups and saucers, one large dish, one carving knife and fork, seven knives and four forks, a pair shears, five spoons, three teaspoons, one glass lamp, two glasses, one bedstead and cord, five sets of pillow-slips, three table cloths, six sheets, one counterpane, one saddle, one bedstead, bed and furniture, ten pillows, one bed, one large brass draft, one wine glass, one frow and two towels: levied on as the property of Lewellen Gilliland, to satisfy two fi. fas. One in favour of Robert B. Duncan, and the other in favour of Amos Bullard vs. said Gilliland.
Sept. 1                                                                                                                        James Bleckley, Sh’ff

From The Athenian
Athens, Georgia
27 October, 1829
RABUN Sheriff’s Sale. – On the first Tuesday in November next, will be sold at the Court-house in the town of Clayton, Rabun county, within the usual hours of sale, the following property, to wit:
One brown Horse, about seven years old, one bay Horse, eight or nine years old, one pied Cow, one bee stand, one looking glass and one table: levied on as the property of Lewellen Gilliland, to satisfy two fi. fas. One in favor of Robert B. Duncan & Co. the other in favor of Amos Bullard, vs. said Gilliland
Sept. 29                                                                                                                     JAMES BLECKLEY, Sh’ff

From The Southern Banner
Athens, Georgia
2 March, 1833
RABUN Sheriff’s Sale. On the first Tuesday in MARCH next, will be sold at the Court-House in the town of Clayton, Rabun county, within the usual hours of sale, the following property, to wit:
One lot of Land, No. 42, (forty-two) in the first District of Rabun County, levied on as the property of Joseph Patterson, to satisfy a fi. fa. issued from a Justice’s Court in favor of John Catlett, for the use of Allen Gilliland, vs. said Patterson.
Levy made and returned to me by a constable.
Feb. 2                                                                                                                          T. M. HENSON, D Sh’ff.

From The Southern Banner
Athens, Georgia
4 March, 1837
RABUN Sheriff’s Sale. On the first Tuesday in April next, will be sold at the Court-House in the town of Clayton, Rabun county, within the usual hours of sale, the following property, to wit:
The tract of land whereon James George formerly lived, including a part of Lots Nos. 53 and 54, in the fifth district of Rabun county: levied on as the property of James George, to satisfy a fi. fa. Issued from a Justice’s court, in favor of Elizabeth Gilliland vs James George and Moses G. Anderson. Levy made and returned to me by a constable.
                                                                                                                                   JOHN DERRICK, Sheriff

    What can we make of these records? Certainly, we can assume that the Lewellen Gilliland was a man of some property and means. He was a slaveholder and judging by the gender and age of these women, I’m speculating they served in a household; from the lists of goods we can assume he owned a large home; he also owned a number of horses and perhaps bred horses himself; he had at one time lived in Clayton, county seat of Rabun. Yet I could find no records for Lewellen in Rabun County after 1829 and in one advertised property sale of 1829 it is written, “the house wherein L. Gilliland formerly lived….”.
Is this the same Lewellen Gilliland who appears in the Florida records in the 1830’s? If so, what circumstances led to his removal from Georgia and the sale of most or all of his properties in 1829? Did he leave a wife or descendants?
    There are similarly published records for other Gillilands of Rabun County after 1829, specifically an Allen Gilliland (1833) and Elizabeth Gilliland (1837). How were these two related to Lewellen?
Additionally, court records exist for Gillilands in neighboring Habersham County (James Gilliland), as well as the nearby counties of Jackson (Henderson Gilliland) and Clark (John and Coil Gilleland). 
    To sum up, I have a collection of records here both from Georgia and Florida for a Lewellen Gilliland but lack sufficient evidence to say with certainty that these are one in the same man. I’m hoping that one of our fellow researchers here can enlighten me (and us) about his place along our Gilliland Trail.