Kate’s notes: Although Lewellen Gilliland was reportedly living in Alachua County, Florida (Gainesville is the current county seat) at the time of his unfortunate demise, he had previously been a resident of Rabun County, Georgia.
   For more information on Captain Gilliland see: Sheriff's sale of Gilliland properties, Rabun County, Georgia, 1828-1837  in the Gilliland Trails library.
   The newspaper report of his death I’ve transcribed was published in the Macon Georgia Telegraph though it first appeared in the Florida Watch. Following the newspaper report is a book excerpt that relates just how Gilliland lost his life.
   Though Lewellan’s surname is spelled as Gilleland in this newspaper report, in the Georgia records, as well as on the historical marker for Fort Gilliland, his name is spelled as Gilliland.

Macon Georgia Telegraph
Macon, Georgia
1 August, 1837

    Murder of Capt. Gilliland. – On Sunday night, the 9th inst., Capt. L. Gilleland, of Alchua, was murdered on the St. Augustine road, about 30 miles this side of Newnansville, to which place he was proceeding. He had encamped for the night, at a place called the “Double Sincks,” and was found dead about 200 yards from the encampment, behind a tree, where he had sought, after being wounded, protection and concealment. One of his horses lay dead upon the spot, having received several wounds. The murder was discovered next morning, by Capt. Searl. It is not known whether the deed was committed by Indians or Negroes.
    Capt. Gilleland was a member of the last Legislative Council; had, as a military officer, rendered much service to the Territory, and was highly esteemed in all the relations he sustained in public and private life. He has led a wife and children to mourn his untimely end. – Flor. Watch.

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“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.