Person Page - 233

John Hugh Gillis^1,2

• Father: Angus Hugh Gillis^1,3 b. 4 Jan 1853, d. 5 Feb 1920
• Mother: Margaret Ann MacFarlane^1,3 b. 8 Feb 1862, d. 16 Jul 1905

• Relationships: 2nd great-grandson of Dougald MacFarlane, 2nd great-grandson of Margaret MacDonell, 1st cousin 1 time removed of Donald James MacFarlane
• Charts: Descendants of Hugh Gillis & (?) MacEachern

The ancestry chart of Archibald MacFarlane (ID # 34) is presented because he unites the ancestry of both his parents. If an individual appears more than once in Archibald's chart this indicates descent from the individual in more than one line. By clicking on the each instance (i.e. Ancestry of Archibald MacFarlane (#5)) each line of descent will be shown.

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• Birth*: John Hugh Gillis was born on 3 January 1884 in SW Margaree, Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada.^1,3
• Death*: He died on 4 July 1913 in North Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, at age 29.²
• Obituary: His obituary reads:
  
  John Hugh Gillis was the son of cabinet maker Angus Hugh Gillis and his wife, Margaret Ann MacFarlane, who had moved from the Margaree Valley to North Sydney. After she died in 1904 Angus married again and moved to Glace Bay. John Hugh attended St. Francis Xavier College but dropped out after a year or two, probably for financial reasons because his father had a large family. Jack was well known through the Maritimes as an athlete and champion long distance runner. His Gillis family had come from the mainland opposite the Scottish Isle of Skye and their first language was Gaelic, which was the third most spoken European language in Canada at that time.
  Cross-continent walk[edit]
  On a bet and a dare, on 31 January 1906 at the age of 22 he set out from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, with two others to walk to San Francisco and back within a year. They hiked on the railroad track, crossed central Maine in cold and blizzard and reached Montreal. There they disagreed. Gillis, suffering from sore feet, went on alone towards Vancouver. Charles Jackman, retired from the Toronto lacrosse team, decided at Montreal to follow him. Jackman caught up with him near Ignace, Ontario. The two tall athletes, both 6 feet 4½ inches, walked 1800 miles (2700 km) together with many adventures and strode into Vancouver station to a waiting crowd at midnight 24 September 1906.
  How did this cross-continent walk come about? Perhaps Jack read books about two men who had walked across the United States. He and his young brother-in-law, Donald Parker, who owned the Queen Hotel, cooked up a hare-brain scheme. John Hugh was to walk to San Francisco and back in 366 days, starting off without a cent in his pocket, selling souvenir cards, getting the signature of town mayors, and coming back with $200. Oh, add to that, he would leave 31 January 1906 in the dead of winter and walk across central Maine to Montreal on the railroad track. They did not realize how impossible it was.⁴