Pittsburgh
Millican, Milligan, Millikan, Milliken, Millikin, Mullican, Mulliken, Mullikin etc.


Milliken



James Milligan Esq. of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia



A Scotsman and the son of Quintin Milligan, a merchant of St. John�s Town of Dalry in Galloway, James Milligan became a prominent figure in the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) and Comptroller of the first Treasury of the United States. He first appears in America, as a trader at Fort Pitt in the western part of Pennsylvania, which had been built on the grounds of the Fort Duquesne taken possession by the British on 25 November, 1758. As �James Milligan� his name is listed with a number of men, women and children not belonging to the Army on 22 July, 1760. Fort Pitt was built by the British between 1759 and 1761 during the French and Indian War and the frontier colonists, who settled there added to the development and growth of the town of Fort Pitt, which became Pittsburgh. In 1764, Col. John Campbell set out the first streets adjacent to the fort, along the Monongahela River, which offered protection to both the settlers and Indian traders. On 25 July, 1775, then a merchant in Philadelphia, he was appointed by the Continental Congress to sign Continental Currency and in December 1777, elected to the Continental Treasury as a commissioner of accounts. He was then appointed Auditor General of the Treasury in 1779 and Comptroller General of the United States Treasury in 1781, an office he held until it was abolished in 1787.

From �Pittsburgh�, we find James Milligan trading in fur and deerskins with the Indians, and selling these on to merchants in Philadelphia. The typical fur trader from Fort Pitt has been described as being rough, bold, and as fierce as the Indians, wearing a blanket coat or deerskins, and armed with a rifle, knife and tomahawk. Other traders included Joseph Spear, Daniel Elliott, Alexander Lowrey, John Gibson, John Boggs and Joseph Simon. With the last, he entered into a partnership and in 1766, he was representing the partnership at Fort Pitt and dealing with the merchants of Philadelphia. On 19 October, 1772, Benjamin Taite, Sergeant in His Majesty�s 18th or Royal Regiment of Ireland mortgaged a plantation, lying on the east of side of Chritees Creek, about 8 miles from Fort Pitt, to Col. John Campbell of the town of Pittsburgh, which he in turn gave for the use of Joseph Simon, James Milligan and himself, all merchants in Pittsburgh. By then, James had already become one of the earliest land owners in the Squirrel Hill district of Pittsburgh, when soon after the land office had opened in 1769, he obtained a title to a tract of 300 acres, which is partly included in the present Calvary Cemetery.

In 1768, James, then of �Fort Pitt�, became a non-resident member of the Saint Andrew's Society of Philadelphia, afterwards a resident member of Philadelphia and in 1772, its Secretary. It was formed in 1747 by twenty-five prominent Pennsylvanians of Scottish ancestry to assist the large number of destitute Scots arriving in Philadelphia at that time. By 1772, James had already established a store in Philadelphia, and it was from here that he began his visit to Britain, taking him to London and Scotland, where he visited the town of Dumfries and his home town of St. John�s Town of Dalry, then known as St. John�s Clauchan in Galloway. This was meeting of family and friends coupled with business. His father and mother had already died, but other family members were still living, including his brother, John Milligan, his father�s second wife Marion Wilson and his step-sister Mary Milligan. Whilst at St. John�s Clauchan, the properties known as "Knockardie", which constituted �Stollages of houses commonly called Knockardie with the yards and crofts of land lying in and about St. John�s Clauchan within the barony of Grennan�, were conveyed to him by right of his father, Quintin, as the eldest son. Below is a transcript of the legal document that conveyed these properties.

At Dumfries the fourteenth day of the April 1772, the following Sasine was presented by William McMillan apprentice to John Clerk, writer in Dumfries and which tenor follows: Be it known that in the ninth day of April 1772, the reign of our Sovereign Lord George the third, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, defender of the Faith, in the presence of me Notary Public, subscribing and the witnesses aftermentioned compeared personally upon the ground of the subject mentioned Mess. Gordon Taylor in St. John�s Clauchan as Baillie in that part of James Gibson, late merchant of St. John�s Clauchan now residing in Carssford especially constituted by the precept of sasine contained in the Disposition aftermentioned and there also compeared personally James Milligan merchant in Philadelphia eldest lawful son of the deceased Quintin Milligan late merchant in St. John�s Clauchan having and holding in his hands principal Disposition of the same date herewith Granted by the said James Gibson in his favour whereby for the causes therein specified, he Gave Granted & Disponed from him & all of his heirs and survivors to and in favour of the said James Milligan and his heirs and survivors & Dispones whatsoever absolutely and irredeemably All & Whole these Stollages of houses commonly called Knockardie with the yards and crofts of land belonging thereto lying in and about St. John�s Clauchan within the barony of Grennan and parish of Dalry and Stewartry of Kirkcudbright and described as follows Viz. the one Stellage of Houses, Yards and Crofts by Marian Wilson widow of the said Quintin Milligan with house and yards adjoining thereto possessed by Samuel Allan, bounded by to the high road leading from St. John�s Clauchan to � and Dalry Church on the north, by the Roshalls and Meikle Kirkland on the south west and by the high road leading from the said Clauchan to Kirkland of New Galloway on the east part and the others Stellage of houses possessed by David Shaw merchant in John�s Clauchan with the yard belonging thereto and an old house sometime occupied and used a byre and � Together with the whole part and pertinents of the said subject wherein the said James Gibson bounds and obliges him to infelt and lease the said James Milligan by two several infeftments there mentioned. The Disposition also contains precept of Sasine of the following tenor Viz. my Baillies in that part to pass and give and deliver to the said James Milligan a sasine for all and whole the Stellages of houses, yards and crofts abovementioned. He commits his full power by the said precept written by Robert Ramsay writer in Dumfries and subscribed by James Gibson at John�s Clauchan the ninth day of April 1772 before the witnesses Mr. John Campbell, schoolmaster in Dalry, Robert Ramsay and John Milligan, brother german to the said James Milligan and who are also witnesses to the Disposition which also contains a resignation and other clauses to James Milligan to be exhibited by Alexander Gordon baillie of the aforesaid. And so, having read the clauses, he delivered the Disposition to the said public notary, who delivered it to James Milligan as instructed in the precept of sasine and gave instrument on the ground of the said property between hours of five and six in the afternoon in the presence of Mr. John Campbell, Thomas McGhie blacksmith in St. John�s Clauchan, William Wallace merchant there, William McCartney innkeeper there, witnesses especially called. Signed and Sealed.
[Dumfries Register of Sasines (NAS), RS23/20/461-462]

By June 1772, James was in London testifying before a Committee of the Board of Trade to the number of settlers on the other side of the Allegheny Mountains, evidently giving the result of his experience while at Fort Pitt. After this he returned to America, perhaps with mixed emotions about his visit to Scotland and London, where he would have met in person those officials of the King, who had belonged to the British establishment at the Treasury, an experience that I am sure informed his thinking on how the American Treasury should be run. In life, we can only speculate his thinking, but as a Milliken and Milligan, I am sure he would have realised the British treasury already had no control of the Treasury in America and since there was no representation in the British Parliament from the Treasury, this was the moment to ensure the Revisionary feeling in America, found a new vision. When he was being considered, Joseph Nourse, writing to Major-General Gates in 1779 from Philadelphia, called him a "Scotchman Man" and assumed that Gates could not have had him in mind when directing Nourse not to use any Scotchman in transmitting his correspondence, thereby showing that Gates looked upon them all as likely to be Loyalists while Nourse knew Milligan could be depended upon.

James was born in May 1739 in the parish of Dalry in Galloway and descended from the lairds of Blackmyre in Nithsdale, Dumfriesshire. His father Quintin owned a farm known as Glenshimmeroch not far from St. John�s Town of Dalry. On reaching the age of 21, James is said to have left Scotland in 1760 and emigrated to Philadelphia, where he remained two years. This cannot be correct, as he appears in Fort Pitt in 1760, unless he had made his first trip to Fort Pitt in 1760. After he returned from Britain in 1772, he continued his business in Philadelphia until the outbreak of Revolution, when on 1 June, 1776, he was appointed Quarter-master of the 3rd Battalion of Associators in the City. His commission was signed by John Morton, Speaker of the Assembly. Both Samuel Cadwalader Morris and he were on the Committee for the County and City of Philadelphia at the Provincial Conference on 16 June, 1776. He was commissioned Ensign in the 7th Pennsylvania Regiment of the line on 19 March, 1777, appointed 2nd Lieutenant on 1 September, 1777, 1st Lieutenant on 16 April, 1779, and transferred to 4th Pennsylvania on 17 January, 1781. He transferred to 1st Pennsylvania on 1 January, 1783 and served until 3 June, 1783.

He married Martha Morris (b. 12 February, 1749), daughter of Samuel Morris and Hannah Cadwalader of Philadelphia on 25 July, 1787. Martha married �out of meeting�, and was consequently, after marriage, disowned by the Society of Friends. She died on 26 January, 1815, and he on 24 September, 1818, aged 80 years in New York, the house of his son and only surviving child, Samuel Morris Milligan.


Samuel Milligan of Philadelphia


Samuel Milligan, b. 18 April, 1789, son of James Milligan of Philadelphia, merchant, by his wife Martha Morris. Samuel graduated A.B. (Princton), studied medicine and afterwards law, and for some years practised law in Philadelphia. In 1819, he was a member of the City Council and resided sometime at Ellerslie in Susquehanna County, Pa. He married on 11 May, 1820, Ann Morris, born on 28 March, 1789, daughter of Cadwalader Morris and Ann Strettell of Philadelphia. Ann�s father, Cadwalader Morris, was member of the Continental Congress after the Revolutionary War. She died at �the Knoll� on 23 July, 1831. Samuel married secondly, Abigail Griswold (b. 1806, d. 4 February, 1844), on 10 September, 1839. He died at �the Knoll� on 24 April, 1854.

Children by his 1st Wife, Ann Morris:

  1. Anna Frances Milligan, b. 1824, lived �at the Knoll�, unmarried in 1850.

  2. James Cadwalader Milligan, b. 2 July, 1825, at Ellerslie, Chocount Township, Susquehanna; m. 25 November, 1851, Mary Debbie daughter of Whiting Sanford by his wife Debbie, daughter of Nathaniel Mitchell, Gov. of Delaware. James died on 31 March, 1891, and Mary, on 30 January, 1899. Both are buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery. They had an only son called:

    1. John Morris Milligan, b. 1855 in Philadelphia, married Emmeline L�hommedieu Hall (b. 1855). He died on 24 May, 1893, and was buried with his parents in West Laurel Hill Cemetery. His wife is listed in the 1900 Census of Pennsylvania. At the time, she resided at Allegheny, Philadelphia and was a widow. The Census notes she had three children and all were still living in 1900. Only the name of one is known:

      1. John Milligan, b. December, 1887, in Philadelphia.

  3. Martha Cadwalader Milligan, b. 1826, married Charles Moore Wheatley, Hon. A. Am (Yale 1858), b. in England in 1822, author of a Catalogue of the Shells of the United States, died on 6 May, 1882.

  4. Hannah Morris Milligan, b. 1831, lived at the Knoll, unmarried in 1850.

Children by 2nd wife, Abigail Griswold:
  1. Charles Hare Milligan, b. June 12, 1840, lived at the Knoll in 1850, d.16 May, 1867, aged 26.

  2. Samuel Milligan, b. 1842, lived at the Knoll in 1850.

The �Knoll�, Phoenixville, was a mansion house set in 55 acres with 16 acres consisting of Grove, the original woodland. The mansion had twenty-one large rooms, and the walls in many places, are two feet in thickness. It was occupied for a time by John Morris and the sons and daughters of Samuel Milligan.






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