R303
Husband: Shepherd Gilliland
Father: James Gilliland [R300]
Mother: Susanne (Young) Gilliland [R300]
Born: 2/13/1786 [S011]
Wife: Jennet (Jane) Harriette (Haynes) Gilliland [S012, S081]
Married: 8/5/1811, in Botetourt County [S008]
Children:
Henry Young Gilliland [R308] (1812-1848)
Juliet Granville Gilliland (1825-) m. Samuel T. Martin, ch. David G.
Martin (1852-), James Rogers Martin (1854-1863)
Mary S. Gilliland (1820-) m. James Franklin (1807-)
Stepchild: Amanda Jane (Haynes) Wood [R254], Jennet’s daughter
by her first husband.
(1996) Shepherd Gilliland served in the War of 1812 as a Private in the Virginia Militia Company of Captain John Pitzer and Captain Joseph Johnston; see [S098]. He was discharged 11/5/1814, when he furnished his brother, James Gilliland, as a substitute. His household is listed in the 1820 census of Bath County: 1 boy less than 10, 1 man 26-44, 1 girl less than 10, 1 woman 26-44, 3 people engaged in agriculture, 2 male slaves less than 14, 1 female slave less than 14, 1 female slave 26-44.
Shepherd was the brother most in evidence of Sarah Gilliland, who married Edward Wood [R003]. He was a witness at the wedding. He was active in the Windy Cove Presbyterian Church, and in 1844, along with Edward Wood, was on the committee of five that initiated construction of the first Indian Hill Church [R023]. Shepherd lived just a few miles south of Indian Hill. Annals of Bath County [S095] records that “The last [change in the boundaries of Bath County] was in 1847 and was very small. It consisted of a slight change put into the Bath-Allegany line where it crosses the Cowpasture, so that Sheppard Gilliland and Orlando Griffith might be citizens of Alleghany.”
According to WPA Report #98 of Alleghany County [S060], about 1854 Shepherd Gilliland inherited Gilliland’s Tavern from James Gilliland. (James’s heirs are named in Alleghany County Deed Book 5, p. 331. I have not looked this up.) This would appear to be not Shepherd’s father James [R300], who died in 1810, but Shepherd's brother James, who would have been 71 in 1854 (Shepherd himself was 68). In 1874, when Shepherd was 88, he sold the tavern to his grandson Shepherd Y. Gilliland, reserving for himself a life estate (Deed Book 7, p. 107).
[S060] contains much discussion of the ramifications of Shepherd’s “life estate.” Evidently this entailed Shepherd Y. paying half of Shepherd Gilliland’s debts, which were so great that Shepherd Y. Gilliland petitioned in court to return his share of the tavern to his father in order to be relieved of the obligation. This did not occur, however, because when [S060] was written in 1937 the owner of the tavern was the third wife and widow of Shepherd Y. Gilliland.
[S060] describes the tavern as being “19 miles east of Covington, going east route #60, Route #2, left.” This puts it a mile or so south of the Bath County/Alleghany County line, between Rte. 42 and the Cowpasture River; about two miles west of Griffith (where Sarah Gilliland [R003] was raised), and about two miles south of the White House, where Edward and Sarah Wood [R003] would live. The WPA report says the building is (in 1937) close to the road, is weatherboarded, and consists of three large rooms, with outdoor cabins for a kitchen. The place was being used in 1937 for a camp (i.e., a summer cabin, not a children’s camp) in the summer time. The report quotes Mrs. Maggie Gilliland of Clifton Forge―“She has much to say about its historic past.”
In 1851 and again in 1855 Shepherd applied for, and received, allotments of bounty land somewhere west of Virginia, which he was entitled to as a veteran of the War of 1812. In the first case he received 40 acres, in the second 120. In 1874 he applied for a pension as a veteran of the War of 1812; this entailed certification that “...at no time during the late rebellion against the authority of the United States did he adhere to the cause of the enemies of the Government, giving them aide and comfort...” A pension was granted, $8 per month [S122]. There is no application for a pension by his wife, so she appears to have died before him.
