Tulare County Biographies

MICHAEL GILLIGAN

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
A native of Ireland, Michael Gilligan was born November 15, 1830. After he had 
grown up he came to Canada, where he was employed for a time in railroad work. 
Eventually, in 1871, he came to California and remained long enough to fall in 
love with the country, but went back to Canada and lived there another year 
before settling here permanently. He located a quarter-section, his brother 
having located the same amount of land also. All of this land ultimately became 
his and by later purchase his holdings were increased to ten hundred and twenty 
acres. The sheep business subsequently engaged his attention, starting with 
three hundred and seventy-four head, and in time he owned as high as three 
thousand, but in 1877 he lost all but about seven hundred head. He was compelled 
to conform to the changes in farming and in stock growing with which the history 
of Central and Southern California has made every observer and reader familiar, 
and in time he sold out his sheep interests and gradually paid more and more 
attention to his land, which he is now handling in a way that makes it very 
profitable. In 1911 he sold his sheep to his son, who in turn sold them to a 
Frenchman who rents the Gilligan ranch.
In 1866 Mr. Gilligan married Nora Broderick, who was born and reared in Canada. 
Of the ten children born to them six have passed away, the four remaining being 
John E., Hugh, Michael T. and Nora. The latter married Jesse Riley. Mr. Gilligan 
is a public-spirited man who does his full share in promotion of the general 
uplift. His interest in the country in which he has cast his fortunes is all the 
deeper because his recollections of it in the days that are gone are those of a 
pioneer, who came to it when it was practically a wild state, with antelope and 
other game plentiful and Indians in evidence everywhere. At that time there was 
only one house between his home and Visalia, twenty-five miles.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, Pp 846-847