History of Van Wert County, Ohio - Publ. by Richmond & Arnold - Chicago, Illinois - Publ. 1906 - Page 413

History of Van Wert County, Ohio - Publ. by Richmond & Arnold - Chicago, Illinois - Publ. 1906 - Page 607

Pg. 145 -
SOME RECOLLECTIONS of the GILLILAND FAMILY and EARLY DAY ANECDOTES
(Given by T. S. Gilliland at the family reunion on the 27th of October, 1904.)
     The Gilliland family came from County Down, in the North of Ireland.  They were Scotch-Irish.  There were seven sons and four daughters, their names as follows:  James, Thomas, Hugh, Adam, Andrew, Robert and John; Jane, Mary, Sarah and Catherine.  The family came up to the Roosevelt idea, as most of the Gilliland families do.  Three of the brothers came to America in advance of the rest of the family.
     When the mother and father came, as they were about to sail, one of the daughters, Catherine, left the vessel and married, contrary to the wishes of the family, and it is said her  name was never mentioned in the family thereafter.  It is said that when the mother met the three boys she was much shocked at the color of their teeth - they had learned to chew tobacco.
     Jinnie Jordan, an old Irish woman, used to say that every Sabbath the father and mother first, then the two oldest children, then the next two, and so on to the youngest, would go to church, and that was kept up after the older ones were men and women.  They were Presbyterians.
     The family settled in Maryland, near Hagerstown.  John Gilliland, or Jack as he was familiarly called, and one of his brothers went up in the Northwestern part of Pennsylvania and too up a "tomahawk right" claim; that is, they blazed around a piece of land which gave them a title to it.  On their return, the Indians pursued them for 30 miles, until within sight of Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg.  They were seldom out of sight of the Indians, for as they would ascend one hill they would see the Indians coming over the one behind.  John Gilliland killed a fine mare in the race and was so disgusted that he gave his claim to one of his brothers, who improved it.  there is now a large settlement of the Gillilands in that part of the State, many of them wealthy farmers.  Two of the brothers settled in Greenbrier county, Virginia, and later went to East Tennessee.  They married rich planters' daughters and become slaveholders.  It was a source of regret to their mother that her boys held slaves.  It is said of one of the boys that when quite a lad he hired out to neighboring farmers to drive a cart.  It was noticed that when he met a neighboring squire in his carriage that he would drive out of the road and take off his hat till the squire passed.  Someone asking him what he did that for, he said, "Don't you have to do do that when you meet a squire?"  They told him that a squire in this country was no better than any one else.  the lad thought it over and concluded that he would make the squire give the road the next time.  It so happened that the next time they met it was on a narrow piece of road with a deep mire at the side.  The lad stopped his cart and the squire his carriage.   They eyed each other and finally the squire told the lad to drive out of the road.  "No," said the lad, "you give the road this tie, " and enforced his command by pulling a stake out of his cart and swinging it in front of the squire and telling him to drive on.  This the squire did, and mired down, while the lad mounted his cart and drive on, feeling that he had asserted his rights as an American Citizen, much to the amusement of the bystanders, who were watching the performance.  Two brothers moved to Virginia, and finally to Eastern Tennessee, as stated above; two to Northwestern Pennsylvania; and two to Eastern Ohio, west of Pittsburg.  The other brother, John, remained in Maryland.  He married Jane Briggs and raised a large family as his father before him had done, the children being named as follows:  James Gordon (named for Lord Gordon, of Ireland), John, Nancy (Mrs. Peter Wills), Thomas, Adam, Sarah (Mrs. George Guy), Robert, Jane (Mrs. Theophilus King), Hugh and William.  The last named died when quite young.  John Gilliland served in the Continental Army, and was at the battle of Yorktown and at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis.  He died in 1826 from injuries received in an explosion.  James G. Gilliland was then 22 years old on him depended the rearing of the family of John, the next younger, had married and moved away.  The other boys were quite young.  In 1833 James G. Gilliland and a Mr. Wise came West, walking from Gettysburg to Fort Wayne and back.  In 1834 Peter Wills moved to near Tiffin and the rest of the Gilliland family moved to Bucyrus and remained there during the summer of 1835, raising a crop on the farm of a Mr. Shaffner.
     The Gilliland family moved to Ridge township in 1835, where James G. Gilliland entered 240 acres of land in section 9,80 acres where the Infirmary is and 80 acres just east of the Infirmary, where John Johnson lives.  This last mentioned tract he gave to his brothers for keeping their mother her lifetime.  This they sold the same fall to the Parmleys for $1,000 and each of them was able to enter land for himself.  When the family was at Bucyrus, two of the brothers went ont hunting and got lost.  An old Indian piloted them out of the woods and then told them he could tell them how they could go hunting and never get lost.  They told him they wished he would.  He said, "Go out all around the field and keep looking at the fence."  At another time two of them were out hunting and were very hungry, when they came to an Indian wigwam.  There was no one at home.  They went in and found some jerked meat and were eating it when an Indian came in.  He looked at them a moment and asked, "White man like wolf meat?"  That satisfied their appetite.  The Indians had jerked the wolf meat for their dogs.  To prepare jerked meat, the Indians used to build a big fire and let it burn down into a bed of coals.  Then they would drive forks in the ground, lay poles in these forks, then smaller stocks across these about two foot above the coals, and on these sticks strips of meat, after being salted, were laid.  In this way the meat would be partly cooked, partly smoked and thoroughly dried, and would keep for months.  The writer has known his father, James G. Gilliland, to bring a whole grain sack full of jerked meat home from some of his hunting trips.  Adam Gilliland married one of the daughters of Mr. Shaffner, on whose farm they were farming while at Bucyrus.
     When James G. Gilliland moved to Ridge township he was four days coming from the Big Auglaize to Smith's Hill camp.  The first home was built of poles and covered with linn bark.  Later in the fall a better one was built of round logs and covered with clapboards held in place with weight poles instead of nails.  During the fall of 1835 three men stopped for a drink, and said that the family would soon have neighbors (the nearest ones then, except Hill and John Mark, being 15 miles away), as they were going to lay out a town about three miles west.  The Gillilands afterward learned that these were Aughenbaugh, Riley and Marsh.
     When provisions ran low Mr. Gilliland went to Allen County and bought hard roasting ears, which were brought home and grated on a grater made by him out of part of a tin bucket by punching holes in it with a nail.
     Later in the season he went to Piqua to mill and paid $1 a bushel and had the grain ground.  He tried to buy flour, but there was none for sale, although there was flour there to give away to  those who were not able to buy.  (It was sent from Zanesville.)  They told Mr. Gilliland that if he would give him a barrel, but this he refused to do.  While there he saw a rich man from Mercer county get flour.  Father asked how he managed to get it.  "Well," he said, "I had nothing to eat at home and had no money to buy, and they gave it to me."  At that time he was worth five times as much as was Mr. Gilliland.  It took two weeks to make the trip to Piqua and return with an ox team.  The Gillilands went to Dayton for groceries, and to Sandusky City for salt.  The writer once heard his Uncle Peter Mills say that he carried a sack of salt from Sandusky City on horseback.  Mr. Gilliland once went to Kalida for crocks and on the way home lost the trail after night.  He lay down to wait for the moon to come up, and fell asleep.  He was awakened by something putting its cold nose against his face.  It ran away and set up a howl and then he knew it was a wolf.  For several years some of the family would go to Piqua to mill with an ox team.
     John Gilliland was a blacksmith by trade and had moved to Logansport, Indiana.  His mother and brothers wanted him to move here on a farm, but to do so he would have had to come around by way of Piqua.  So the brothers and Peter Wills cut the road from four miles west of Van Wert through to Fort Wayne.  After that Fort Wayne was the milling point, being 35 miles distant instead of 72 to Piqua.
     Once James G. Gilliland went to Fort Wayne to mill and found about two acres covered with wagons waiting for their grists.  He unloaded his grain and then asked the miller how soon he could get his grinding, and was told that it would not be under two weeks.  He said that his family would starve before that time as they did not have provisions to last that long.  Some of the men spoke up and said that he was no better than they were and they had been there two weeks.  Mr. Gilliland chained his oxen to the wagon and fed them.  As soon as it was dark he bought a gallon jug, had it filled with the best brandy and then took it up and hid it in the bran pile.  He told the miller that he had hid something nice in the bran pile and that when the hopper was about empty he should go down stairs and he (Gilliland) would throw in his grain.  The miller told him that the others would not let him grind it.  Mr. Gilliland replied that he was a miller by trade and would grind it himself, and so it was arranged.  First he stuffed some rags in the bell so it would not ring.  He then untied his sacks and was ready when the hopper run empty.  He had more than half his grain in the hopper before the others noticed what he was doing.  Then they caught him and some of them held him while others hunted up the miller.  The miller came up in a great rage, apparently, and a quarrel ensued.  The miller threw off his coat and Mr. Gilliland did the same.  The miller finally said, "Well, he is a fool, I won't grind his grist, and he will spoil his flour and we will be rid of him"  Mr. Gilliland appeared to be disappointed because the miller would not grind the grist and began to beg the miller to grind it, but the miller went off, refusing to touch it.  That partly pacified the others.  Mr. Gilliland ground his grist and started home the next morning.
     The first winter after the Gillilands came to Ridge township, his brother Hugh came to James G. Gilliland's place and wanted to latter go to coon hunting with him.  James told him that he had never seen a coon track and would not know one if he should see it.  Hugh said he had seen them in the mud at Bucyrus.  So they started north and soon came to where there was a regular path between two trees.  They cut one of them down and put the family's little fiste (dog) in the top of the tree; he would come out at the bottom.  They did this several times and were about to give up when Hugh happened to look in the stump and there lay five coons apparently not disturbed by the falling of the tree.  They killed 14 coons that day and Hugh was so proud of his share that he said he would carry them home that night.  he carried them as far as where the James M. Young farm is and threw them down in the snow, to lie there until morning.
     The first house built in Van Wert was the Court house, a double log cabin with a space between, which was used as a prison during court.  It was covered with clapboards, and held in place with weight boards instead of nails.  William Priddy had the contract to build it.  At the raising, he brought ear corn to grate to make corn bread, and James G. Gilliland killed a deer about where the Third Ward schoolhouse is; when they were bringing in the deer, Smith Hill found a bee tree near where the deer was killed, so they had corn bread, honey and venison.  Some of the men to help raise the house came from Allen County.
     The Gillilands' nearest neighbors, excepting Smith Hill and John Mark, were 15 miles away at Willshire and on the Big Auglaize, and north it was 40 miles without a house.  There were plenty of Wyandot Indians here.  One in particular used to stay all night at the Gilliland house.  His hair was so long that when he sat down it would reach the chair.  The writer remembers that he liked to slip up and pull the Indian's hair.  Half John, John Lake and Spike Buck are Indian names that are familiar after 60 years have passed.  The first Citizens of Van Wert in the early days adopted the Indian custom on holidays and elections, of selecting one of their number to keep sober; the rest of them could get as drunk as they chose, but they would always obey the "Sober Indian," as he was called.
     A practical joke that reacted on the originators occurred about this time.  Samuel S. Brown carried the mail between Greenville and Van Wert once a week on horseback.  Frank Dodd's, Frank Mott, S. M. Clark and Bill Parent and one or two others concluded they would have Brown get a pint of good whisky from Greenville as they would not drink Dan Cook's whisky.  They decided they would not let Jim Graves have any.  But the secret was too good to keep and some one told Grave's wife.  Well you know how that goes.  The day that Brown was to come, Jim Graves went south along the Greenville road and sat down on a log and waited.  When Brown came along, Graves said, "Mr. Brown, the boys are across the creek hunting and wanted me to get that pint of whisky and bring it over to them."  Graves got the whisky and when Brown reached town they were all out looking for him, wanting to know if he had brought the whisky.  You can imagine their feelings when he said, "I gave it to Jim Graves.  He said you were hunting over on the other side of the creek and had sent him over for it."
     Smith Hill used to tell that he was sitting in his camp, which was 12 feet square covered with limn bark and open on one side, when he saw a young woman coming along the trail, carrying a little boy, with a little girl following.  Mrs. M. H. McCoy was the little girl and the winter was a boy.  Mr. Gilliland and his brother, Adam came up with the team later on.
     Mrs. James G. Gilliland, who had the rheumatism so that she couldn't walk, one night crawled on her hands and knees 200 yards trying to get a shot at a bear that was eating the corn.
     When James G. Gilliland went to mill, which was only twice a year, his family always had a feast of biscuits made of the shorts and his brothers' families frequently shared the feast also.  But most of the year it was corn bread.
     The writer recollects hearing Mr. Scott say that he was with Wayne's army, when they went through here and that they camped between Prairie Creek and Blue Creek.  In the night some of their oxen strayed off and they could not find them, which compelled them to abandon two of their brass cannon.  He said they took the into a deep swale, took off the wheels and left them.  So if any one should find them, they will know how they came there.
     A bee hunter when he found a bee tree would mark his name on it and that would remain his tree until he wished to cut it.  One of the neighbors found a bee tree and marked it, but the next time he passed it he found his name had been cut off and Scott's put in its place.  That was not to be tolerated.  Some of the neighbors decided to cut the tree but for fear Scott would hear them chop, they took a log chain, put it around the tree and drew it as tightly as they could, so as to deaden the sound.  They cut the tree and were just leaving with two big buckets of honey when they heard Scott coming through the woods.  He never knew who cut the tree.
     Smith Hill and some of his nephews were out coon hunting.  They had tracked up a coon and were chopping the tree, when the dogs commenced barking in a treetop near by.  Hill set his gun against a tree and went over to the dogs with his axe.  When he got close up in the treetop, a very large bear came at him, and he tried to back out, when his heel caught in a brush and he fell.  When he got to his feet, the bear was almost onto him and he was compelled to fight.  He sunk the bit of the axe into its head and killed it.  It was very large and very fat.  The writer recollects eating some of it.

THE GILLILAND FAMILY.

     The early history of the Gilliland family has been quite fully entered into on preceding pages.  John Gilliland, the father of James G. Gilliland and his brothers, was 63 years of age at his death in 1826.  His wife, Jane (Briggs) Gilliland, died Nov. 13, 1858, aged 83 years.  Of their 10 children, nine lived to maturity.  The children's names were as follows:  James Gordon, born May 3, 1800; John, born Jan. 28, 1803; Thomas, born Oct. 22, 1806; Adam, born Oct. 19, 1808; Nancy, born Sept. 14, 1810, who married Peter Wills and raised a large family; Robert, born Feb. 2, 1813; Sarah, born Apr. 3, 1815, who married George Guy and died within 30 days of her marriage: Hugh, born Oct. 14, 1817; William, born Sept. 1, 1820, who died at two years of age; and Jane, born Feb. 14, 1824, who married Theophilus King and left one child at her death, - Mary Ellen Swine heart.
     The sons all remained in Van Wert County until their deaths, leaving large families.  At their family reunion in August, 1905, 206 of the family sat down to the table at once.  It is  the boast of the family that there has never been one accused of a crime or been arrested for a misdemeanor.
History of Van Wert County, Ohio - Publ. by Richmond & Arnold - Chicago, Illinois - Publ. 1906 - Page 145-150

History of Van Wert County, Ohio - Publ. by Richmond & Arnold - Chicago, Illinois - Publ. 1906 - Page 254

History of Van Wert County, Ohio - Publ. by Richmond & Arnold - Chicago, Illinois - Publ. 1906 - Page 397

History of Van Wert County, Ohio - Publ. by Richmond & Arnold - Chicago, Illinois - Publ. 1906 - Page 419