Kate’s Notes: The St. Louis Christian Advocate was published weekly by a committee of ministers for the Methodist Episcopal Church South in St. Louis. As this was a denomination-affiliated publication, notices of deaths, births, marriages, etc. of Methodist families from around the country might be published in their weekly.
    In the April 21, 1869 edition of the paper appeared two items regarding the death at age 101 of “Mother Margaret Gilliland” at Jefferson County, Kentucky. Curiously, neither article mentioned the name of her husband nor her maiden name. There also appears to be a discrepancy between the date of death given in the obituary (1868) and the date the notices were published (1869). 
   Just who was the Margaret Gilliland of these testimonials? We find some answers in the book, Counties of Morgan, Monroe and Brown, Indiana by Charles Blanchard, 1884. Within the biography for Ellison Sligar it is noted he took for his wife on March 25, 1844, "Margaret Gilliland, a native of Pennsylvania, and a daughter of Thomas and Margaret (Stogdal) Gilliland, natives of Ireland, who emigrated to the United States in 1793. They were lifelong members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  The former died in 1825, in his sixty-sixth year, and the latter in 1869, in her one hundred and second year." Within this same book are mentioned marriages of what may be two other daughters of this union.
   The Stogdal surname appears to be of Anglo-Irish origins. In Sussex it can be found under various spellings, including Stogdal, Stogdale, Stogdell, Stogdall, Stockdale and Stockdell, among others.

A Centenarian.

   In the obituary column will be found the obituary of a mother in our Methodist Israel, Mother Gilliland, of Jefferson county, Ky., who died at the advanced age of one hundred and one years, and who was eighty-five years a member of the Methodist Church. She, perhaps, was the oldest member of the Methodist Church in America. There is a venerable Christian woman, a member of  Dr. Huston’s Church, in Baltimore, who has been nearly eighty-five years a member of the Methodist Church, but is not as old a woman as Mother Gilliland.

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   GILLILAND. -- Mother Margaret Gilliland was born in Ireland December 8, 1767; emigrated to this country in the year 1800; lived some years in the state of Pennsylvania, and then removed to Shelby county, Ky., subsequently to Jefferson county, Ky., where she lived until the 13th of March, 1868, when she left this world of sorrow for one of joy and peace.
   Mother Gilliland was a member of the Methodist Church more than 85 years; was a faithful and devoted Christian, a firm and ardent Methodist; very regular in her attendance on public worship till she became so infirm as not to be able to do so. This aged and faithful servant of God had learned to live above the afflictions and sorrows of this world; and while for 14 years was almost entirely helpless, yet I was told by her children and friends she was never heard to murmur or complain of her lot. It was my privilege to visit this aged pilgrim frequently, and hear her tell of the goodness of God. O, with what delight have I lingered about the couch, read the word of God, sung the songs of Zion and offered up my feeble prayers, to hear her praise the Lord and tell of his goodness, often exclaiming, “the Lord, blessed be his holy name! has been very good to me.” I can not give you a correct idea of her appreciation of the ministry; but in our visits she would cling to my hand and lift up a fervent prayer, "God bless you!" Her room was a hallowed place for Christians -- God was there. Her physician and neighbor writes me: "I have known Mother Gilliland well 45 years,  and intimately 30 years; and in afflication and health, adversity and prosperity she has been the same meek, patient christian lady and saint; visiting the sick, comforting the distressed, and supporting the weak was her mission when able. He adds, "an Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no guile." Her end was peace, retaining her mind, and especially bright on the subject of religion to the last; gradually sinking, and when almost gone, she closed her eyes and without a struggle ceased to breathe.
   Thus fell the oldest Chrisitan it has ever been my lot to know, which confirms me more and more in the supremacy of the christian religion, "All this and heaven besides." Sister Gilliland was the mother of 11 children, 10 of whom are still living. May their end be as hers. Her funeral was preached by the writer, from Revelations vii. 14, 17.
J. P. GOODSON
Louisville, April 13, 1869

-- transcriptions by  Kate Maynard, 2009.