Kate’s Notes: To date I have not located a news article regarding the resolution of Robert L. Gillilan’s arrest and trial on the charge of counterfeiting. If he did go to jail, however, it wasn’t for long, as I have Virginia-born Robert L. Gillilan, son of Nathan and Anne (Dunlap) Gillilan, marrying Mary Adelia Ann “Annie” Stout in 1878, a union that produced three children. Any additional information regarding this case or a positive identification of Robert L. Gillilan would be welcomed.

Both of the articles below were from The New York Times.

From The New York Times
13 August, 1874

ARREST OF CONTERFEITERS

   ST. JOSEPH, Mo., Aug 12. -- For some days past, A. M. Irving, the Sheriff of Davies* County, and the Deputy United States Marshal, together with Detective Duckworth, of St. Louis, and Special United States Treasury Agent Carnes, of Kansas, have been in this city working up a conterfeiting case. The case culminated in the arrest of Robert L. Gillilan, a wealthy farmer and stock dealer, residing near Jamesport, Davis* County, and G. W. Adams, a farmer and saloon keeper of Lindville, Iowa. The latter arrived on the morning train of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, in response to a telegram sent him requesting him to come with his baggage. At the depot he was taken into custody, and over $8,000 of counterfeit money found in his carpet-bag, consisting of fifties on the National Traders’ Bank of Chicago, and some twenties and fifties of legal tender United States notes. The first named are so well executed as to be almost impossible of detection. Gillilan had sold several thousnad dollars of the money to parties in the city, and has unquestionably disposed of large sums of it over north Missouri and Kansas. One Bradley was arrested last week for passing counterfeit money, which he had purchased of Gillilan. Both the men arrested were taken before the United States Commissioner. They waived an examination, and were committed to appear before the District Court at Jefferson City.

*This should read, Daviess County, not Davies County. The Gillilans of Daviess County, Missouri are descendants of the Nathan Gilliland line and migrated to Missouri from Greenbrier Co., West Virginia.

From The New York Times
23 August, 1874

THE COUNTERFEIT FIVES.
   
   James Duckworth, United States detective, who captured the two counterfeiters, Robert L. Gillilan and George W. Adams, a week or so ago, have returned to St. Louis. The latter was arrested en route from his home in Lenville, Iowa, to St. Joseph, Mo., and Gillilan was taken at St. Joseph. Adams had on his person $8,000 of the counterfeit bills, and Gillilan $500, when arrested. The bills were counterfeit fives on the Traders’ National Bank, Chicago, and were as well executed as to deceive the experts and bank-bill engravers at the Treasury Department in Washington. The paper, the vignette on the back, the signatures, the general appearance of the face of the bill, cannot be distingushed from the genuine. It was only by the aid of a magnifying glass that some of the long letters in the scrip lines are detected running into the shaded letters above, which is not the case in the genuine. And also some letters are discovered to be more widely apart than in the original. These little discrepancies are of a kind to elude even the vigilant eyes of experienced bankers and adepts in handling money. It is a most dangerous counterfeit, and the Treasury Department has offered one and a half percent premium for the return of the whole issue of the genuine bills. Some of the counterfeit bills have made their appearance in St. Louis, but Mr. Duckworth thinks they are not in circulation there to any great extent. It is claimed that the original plate from which the counterfeits are worked off was stolen from the Treasury Department four years ago, and it was only from one or two alterations that the counterfeit was detected by the experts in the Treasury Department. Gilliland was held in the sum of $10,000, and his father, who is worth $100,000 and is a large land owner in Daviess County, Mo., refused to go on his bail. For safety he was conveyed to Jefferson City and locked up, while Adams, whose bail was fixed at $5,000, remains in jail at St. Joseph.

-- transcriptions by Kate Maynard, 2010