San
Joaquin County
Biographies
DANIEL GILLIES
Among the early settlers of Clements
and an early California miner, dating back to 1854, was the late Daniel
Gillies, who was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, and came to America with his
mother in 1830, when he was five years of age, in a sailing vessel around Cape
Horn. He was engaged in mining near
Coloma, El Dorado County. He was married
in San Francisco in June, 1859, to Miss Elizabeth McKinny,
a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who came to California that year with
her brother, via Panama.
Mr. Gillies had charge of the flume
for conducting the water to the hydraulic mines. In 1861 he moved to Lancha
Plana, Amador County, where he superintended the water supply for mining. In 1862 he located in San Joaquin County and
purchased the old Poland House ranch, which consisted of a quarter-section of
farm land about one mile east of what is now Clements. The old Poland House was a roadside hotel,
conducted to accommodate travelers journeying to and from the mines. The first post office was also there in early
days and was called Poland House post office.
Daniel Gillies gave up the hotel business, but farmed the land, mostly
as a grain farmer, for nearly forty years, until his death in 1900. His wife had died previously. They had six children, three of whom are
living: Cecilia for the last thirty-five
years has been in the employ of the Government as deputy postmaster and now as
postmaster at Clements, and also conducts a branch of the San Joaquin County
Free Library; Charles B. Gillies lives at Folsom, and Sallie E. makes her home
at Clements.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1204. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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