Lewellen Gilliland
Birth 1806
Death 10 Jul 1837 (aged 30–31)
Burial
Saint Augustine National Cemetery
Saint Augustine, St. Johns County, Florida, USA
GILLILAND, LEWELLEN CAPT & ADJ US ARMY 6 FLA VOL INF
DATE OF DEATH: 07/10/1837 BURIED AT: SECTION B SITE 504
SAINT AUGUSTINE NATIONAL CEMETERY
104 MARINE STREET ST. AUGUSTINE, FL 32084
Over the past few years I've found myself repeatedly drawn into this mystery and though I've gathered bits a and pieces of the puzzle, I've yet to fit them into a complete picture. But let me start with the record above. From the date and location of his death, I assumed Lewellen died or was killed during the Seminole Wars in Florida. I later confirmed this fact from published sources of the time; a more
recent history provides details of how he was killed:
"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."*
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3963862/lewellen_gilliland
