Isaac Galland

Isaac Galland (May 15, 1791 – September 27, 1858) was a merchant, postmaster, land speculator, and doctor. He is best known for selling large tracts of land around Commerce, Illinois, to Mormon founder Joseph Smith and his church in 1839.

Galland was born in Somerset, Pennsylvania, to Matthew Galland and Hannah Fenno during their move from Norfolk, Virginia, to the Western frontier. He was the second of five children. His siblings were Abel (March 9, 1787 – 1857), Matthew Jr. (1794–1812), David (May 10, 1795 – November 26, 1872), and Mary (Polly) (September 8, 1798 – April 27, 1870). Shortly after his birth, his family relocated to land near Marietta, Ohio, which was located in Ohio's Donation Tract. "The remote location of the Galland homestead did not hinder Isaac's education, since his mother, an educated woman, took on the responsibility of teaching him as much as she could until he was thirteen."

Although little is known of his teenage life before his marriage at 18, according to family tradition, he left Marietta to study at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, when he was thirteen; some sources indicate that he left home to search for gold in Mexico, was seized by the Spanish government, and spent one year in a Santa Fe prison for “suspicion of evil design.”

Galland married Nancy Harris on March 22, 1811, in Madison County, Ohio. Five years later, in 1816, he married his second wife, Margaret Knight, and moved to Washington County, Indiana. He relocated several times, living in Owen County, Indiana, by 1820 and Edgar County, Illinois, shortly thereafter. He moved to Horselick Grove (later Hancock County), Illinois, in 1824.

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