Robert Gillis (1844-1907) was a resident of New Orleans and the father of Mary and Jamie Gillis.
Biography[]
Robert Gillis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1844, and he fathered Mary in 1867 and Jamie in 1879. He disapproved of his daughter's relationship to the outlaw Arthur Morgan due to his criminal lifestyle, and, after the death of his wife, he became an abusive alcoholic who spent much of his time drinking, whoring, and gambling. By 1899, he had begun to pawn off his family's valuables to pay off his debts, and Mary convinced Arthur to follow him and see what he was up to. They found him selling his late wife's brooch to the loan shark Ashton Chancellor, and Morgan pursued Ashton and forcibly retrieved the brooch for Mary. Mary gave up on looking for her father, who, in 1907, was found dead and eaten by vultures on a dirt road near Coot's Chapel to the southeast of Armadillo, New Mexico.