Steven Butler's Genealogy Website: The Gilliland Family

The American Revolution, 1775-1783
Revolutionary War soldier

GREGORY CLARK

Gregory Clark served for approximately ten months in the North Carolina line. No further information available at this time.

HENRY DANCER

Henry Dancer served in the South Carolina militia under Colonel Taylor, 1781-1782. No further information available at this time.

THOMAS GILLILAND

In 1775 Thomas Gilliland enlisted for service in Capt. Michael Creasup's company of Maryland militia, for service in the Revolutionary War. His most noteworthy service was under command of Gen. George Washington during the 1775-1776 siege of Boston. After the British abandoned the city in March 1776, Gilliland served on the frontier until at least 1780. Below is what one modern-day historian has written about how this company of volunteers was raised and about their service in the patriot cause:

During the first few years of the Revolution the border controversy with Virginia was almost as important to the settlers [of the contested region] as the war with the British. It was also a convenient excuse for evading military service away from home. When Pennsylvania recruiting officers came down from Fort Pitt the inhabitants claimed Virginia allegiance, while if Virginia officers came into the district, they would claim allegiance to Pennsylvania. The same held true in the furnishing of supplies. Not wishing to take depreciated currency, the settlers would evade the foraging officers with the same excuse. It was bitterly complained of by the officers of the Continental line.

In spite of all this, patriotism was not lacking, and while was of a selfish type, in that the men sought only to protect their homes and loved ones, at a time when the new nation was unable to help, it nonetheless made possible the complete utilization of Washington's forces in the East. War had hardly been declared before companies were organized and men left to volunteer in the Eastern forces. Recruiting officers were here [in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania] as early as 1775. Captain Michael Creasup of Frederick County, Maryland, sent one of his lieutenants over the mountains to pick up as many frontiersmen as he could get, and it is reliably reported that some twenty or more from this section marched to Cumberland to join him, and then went on to Boston to join Washington there. [It was said] that Creasup's Rifle Company numbered some one hundred and thirty men, who were armed with tomahawks and rifles, painted like Indians, and dressed in hunting shirts and moccasins. [Historians] recall that the settlers of Cumberland and Frederick [counties] turned out to watch their skill with the rifle, when the men would hold a target in their hand for another to shoot at. An eye witness watching them at Boston also reports their skill at this game. When their term was out at Boston, these men returned home, but were saddened by the death of the Captain while at New York. Creasup was buried there in Trinity Church Yard, having died at that place in October 1775. When the men from the West of the mountains returned home they quickly took up the defense of the frontier, a number of them, because of their known experiences, being elected captains of the militia.

Court records in what was then called Ohio County, Virginia include several references to Thomas Gilliland. The first of these, dated Monday, June 2, 1777, reveals that he took an oath as lieutenant of the local militia.

On June 5, 1780 Thomas Gilliland and two other men were "recommended to this Excellency the Governor as Captains [of the militia]."

SAMUEL HAYCRAFT, Sr.

Samuel Haycraft, Sr., son of James Haycraft, "enlisted [as a private] for three years in either the latter part of the winter 1775 or fore part of the year 1776 in the company of Captain James Hooke the 13th Virginia Regiment commanded by Colonel John Gibson." When applying for a Revolutionary War pension in 1820, Haycraft testified under oath "that he was never in any battles but was stationed principally on the Frontier in the neighbourhood of Pittsburg [Pennsylvania]."

While still in service, Haycraft was married by a "Baptist preacher by the name of John Corbly" to Margaret Van Meter, daughter of Jacob Van Meter, "in a fort called Bark fort in the State of Pennsylvania," on "the Ninth day of September Seventeen hundred and Seventy Eight (1778)."

In 1779, following his discharge from service by Colonel Gibson, Haycraft and his wife joined her family and others on log rafts, on which they traveled down the Ohio River to Kentucky, where they were pioneer settlers of Hardin County (Abraham Lincoln's birthplace).

SAMUEL, JAMES, JOHN, and WILLIAM MAGILL

During the American Revolution, several members of the Magill family served the patriot cause. One was Samuel Magill, son of "our" William Jr. (in other words, the son of William, Sr., not James' son), who in 1778, participated in an "expedition against the Cherokees" under the command of Capt. John Gilmore. Another was James Magill (probably also William Sr.'s son), who served in Captain Henderson's Company of Augusta County militia, John Magill, who served in Captain Trimble's Company, and a William Magill, who served in Captain Stephenson's company (and who was either the elder James Magill's son or William Sr.'s youngest son).

WILLIAM MURDOCK

In the fall of 1776 or 1777, during the American Revolution and while living in the Ninety-Six District, seventeen or eighteen-year-old William Murdock, substituting for his father Hamilton, enlisted for service as a private in a regiment of South Carolina militia led by Col. James Williams. Serving as a horseman in a company commanded by Captain Robert Gillam, young Murdock "was sent to Kellott's Station on Reedy River to keep the Indians in check." After being discharged, "he was drafted during June 1780 under the same officers" for another three-month term. He afterward "volunteered to serve under Lt. Christopher Hardy, a Captain Henderson and Colonel Williams as a horseman and sent against the Indians in Georgia."

JACOB VAN METER
Nephew of "our" Jacob Van Meter, and cousin of Margaret Van Meter Haycraft

Jacob Van Meter served under Col. George Rogers Clark (brother of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition) in "a series of campaigns that enabled Americans to claim the Northwest [the territory surrounding the Great Lakes] by right of conquest" during peace negotiations with the British, 1781-'83.

Here is what the book Liberty! The American Revolution (New York: Viking Penguin, 1997) says about Clark's expeditions:

In 1778 the twenty-six-year-old Clark persuaded Virginia to finance an expedition to capture the British outpost at Detroit. The commander there, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Hamilton, was known as "the hair buyer" because he paid Indians well for American scalps.

With Indian war parties everywhere, Clark was able to recruit only 175 men when he returned west to launch his offensive. Undaunted, he floated his miniscule army down the Ohio and marched overland to Kaskaskia, in the Illinois country. Mostly inhabited by French, the village and its neighboring hamlets surrendered without a fight.

Using presents shipped up the Mississippi by the American agent in New Orleans, Clark managed to pacify the thousands of Indians in his vicinity, who could have annihilated any time they chose. Hearing about this American effrontery, hair buyer Hamilton counterattacked and seized the town of Vincennes, in Indiana. He planned to convert it into a base and lure the Indians back to his side with lavish gifts. With snowdrifts burying the woods and fields and with the rivers in flood, he never dreamt that Clark would attack him.

The Virginian took the offensive with a mere 127 men, half of them French volunteers lured by the promise of liberté. Wading through chest-deep, freezing water, with their drummer boy floating on his drum beside them, Clark's mini-army reached Vincennes in February 1779. Hamilton was holed up in the town's fort with seventy-nine men and twelve cannon. Clark frightened him into surrendering with a gesture of pure terror. He had captured five Indians with American scalps on their belts. Executing the warriors in full view of the fort, Clark vowed Hamilton and his men would die the same way if they did not capitulate immediately. The hair buyer gave up, and Clark marched him back to Virginia, where he was treated with surprising moderation as a prisoner of war.

The following transcript of Jacob Van Meter's Revolutionary War Bounty/Pension File provides details of his military service.

STATE OF KENTUCKY
COUNTY OF HARDIN

Jacob Vanmeter of the county and state aforesaid Personally appeared before me John Morris a justice of the peace for the county aforesaid and made oath to the following statement viz that he the said Jacob Vanmeter was commissioned an ensign in the Illinois Regiment commanded by Col George Rogers Clarke in February 1778 and commenced recruiting men for Capt. Harrod's company of said Regiment on the Monongahela River about ten miles above redstone fort that having finished recruiting that he started down the river with part of three companies commanded by Captains Helm Harrod and Bowman the Whole under the command of Col George Rogers Clarke for the falls of the Ohio now Louisville where they remained about a month and built a fort on Corn Island they then left the falls of the Ohio for the old Cherokee fort on the Ohio called afterwards for Mapac [?] where they only staid one night then they left the boats five in number and commenced their march to Ocan [?] now called Kaskaska [sic] which was taken by Col Clarke from the enemy who commanded by a frenchman of the name of Roublack [?] Leaving Captain Wm Harrod and Col Clark at Kaskaska [sic] he marched under the command of Capt Joseph Bowman of the Illinois Regiment to coho [Cahokia?] a small french village about ten miles below the present site of St. Louis from this place he returned under the command of Capt Bowman and Rejoined his Regiment under the command of Col Clarke at Kaskaska's [sic] the following summer his was with Col Clarke at Vincennes that he continued as an ensign in the Illinois Regiment until the end of the war that in 1782 when Col George R Clarke then General commanded an expedition against the Shawnee Indians there was not full command for the officers of the Illinois Regiment he received the appointment of Captain of Militia to command a Company from [word difficult to read] licks which he did command for about two months which ended the expedition but that he did not consider his acceptance of the commission of Capt of Militia to have annulled his commission as Ensign in the Illinois Regiment that it was only a temporary appointment for the expedition that he afterwards continued to hold his Commission of Ensign of the Illinois Regiment until the end of the war and as such was recognized by the Board of Officers who assembled at Louisville in 1784 under an act of the assembly of Virginia for the purpose of allowing to the officers of the Illinois Regiment their portion of land in the Illinois Grant and that he was allowed for his services to the end of the war as Ensign in the Illinois Regiment 2156 acres of bounty land that when the declaration was prepared for him by Mr Northrup to obtain a portion under the act under the act of 1832 he was totally un advised of the provisions of the law that he then stated to Mr Northup that he was an Ensign in the Illinois Regiment and also a Capt of Militia but never intended to convey the idea that he was an Ensign of Militia and that he served only seven months in that capacity for that in truth he served in said Illinois Regiment for several years viz from February 1778 when he was first commissioned until the close of the war that Mr Northrup must have mistaken the seven months service as Ensign of Militia for seven months of active campaigning mentioned to him when Ensign of the Illinois Regiment that he did not intend to convey the idea that he only served seven months in said Regiment but only alluded to a particular portion of the time when in service.

Given under my hand this 6th day of October 1835.

John Morris JPHC [Justice of the Peace, Hardin County]

[This statement is followed by a declaration signed by County Clerk Samuel Haycraft, Jr., attesting to Morris' qualifications and another declaration attesting to Haycraft's qualifications signed by Green Adams, Presiding Justice of the County Court.]