Gideon GIBSON Sr.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Biography: possible match. Gideon Gibson the Progenitor
The following information about Gideon Gibson and his black father (Gideon1 Gibson) is taken from the Ratliff-Smith Genealogy Web site, accessed Dec. 5, 2004. See: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~monticue/Gibson_Notes.htm [no longer accessible]. According to professor Lloyd Johnson (personal communication, Jan. 3, 2005), the parents of Gideon1 Gibson emigrated from England to Virginia in the early 1690s.

Gideon1 Gibson, born say 1695, settled near the Roanoke River in North Carolina about 1720. He purchased 200 acres in what was then Chowan County on the south side of the Roanoke River on 24 July 1721 [DB C-1:142]. He acquired over one thousand acres of land in present-day Halifax County, North Carolina, and on the north side of the Roanoke River in Northampton County. He married Mary Brown sometime before 22 October 1728 when they sold 150 acres "bounded according to the Will of William Brown Gentl decd..." [Bertie DB C:36]. She was under the age of eighteen when her father made his 15 December 1718 Chowan County will, proved July 1719, by which he gave her and each of her six siblings 150 acres [N.C. Archives File SS 841]. Gideon, or Gibby Gibson, must have impressed the other prosperous free African Americans in that area of North Carolina because three of them named their children after him: Gideon/Gibby Chavis, Gideon/Gibby Bunch, and Gibson Cumbo. Many of the well-to-do Gibson and Bunch families married whites and were considered white after a few generations.

He sold 108 acres of his land on the south side of the Roanoke River in the first few months of 1730 in what was then Bertie County before moving to South Carolina with several of his relatives who were living on the other side of the Roanoke River in present-day Northampton County [DB C:276]. They came to the attention of the South Carolina Commons House of Assembly in 1731 when a member announced in chamber that several "free colored men with their white wives" had immigrated from Virginia with the intention of settling on the Santee River" [Jordan, White Over Black, 171]. Governor Robert Johnson of South Carolina summoned Gideon Gibson and his family to explain their presence there and after meeting them reported:

I have had them before me in Council and upon Examination find that they are not Negroes nor Slaves but Free people, That the Father of them here is named Gideon Gibson and his Father was also free, I have been informed by a person who has lived in Virginia that this Gibson has lived there Several Years in good Repute and by his papers that he has produced before me that his transactions there have been very regular, That he has for several years paid Taxes for two tracts of Land and had seven Negroes of his own, That he is a Carpenter by Trade and is come hither for the support of his Family. ... I have in Consideration of his Wifes being a white woman and several White women Capable of working and being Serviceable in the Country permitted him to Settle in this Country [Box 2, bundle: S.C., Minutes of House of Burgesses (1730-35), 9, Parish Transcripts, N.Y. Hist. Soc. by Jordan, White over Black, 172].

Like the early settlers of the North Carolina frontier, Governor Johnson was more concerned with the Gibsons' social class than their race.

Both Gideon Gibson and Gideon Bunch were in South Carolina when they sold their adjoining Halifax County land to Montfort Eelbeck of Halifax, and both families were taxed in 1755 as "free Molatas" in Orange County, North Carolina [N.C. Archives File T&C, box 1].

Gideon and his wife Mary recorded the birth of their child William in the Parish Register of Prince Frederick Winyaw on 9 October 1743. As "Gideon Gibson of Pe De South Carolina" he sold part of his Northampton County land on 16 November 1746 and the remainder on 15 February 1749 [DB 1:280, 383]. In South Carolina he recorded a plat for 200 acres on the northwest side of the Pee Dee River in Craven County on 13 April 1736 and 200 acres on the south side of the Pee Dee on 1 January 1746/7 [Colonial Plats 4:320, 4:397]. He petitioned the South Carolina Council on 12 November 1747 stating that he had been granted a warrant for 650 acres in the Welch Tract where he had settled fifteen years previous and had kept it as a cow pen with a servant on it for about two years. He had since settled in Persimmon Grove and had nine persons in his household: a wife, seven children and a slave [Holcomb, Petitions for Land from the South Carolina Council Journals, I:266].

On 29 November 1750 he received a grant for 450 acres in Persimmon Grove on the Little Pee Dee River in Craven County [Royal Grants 4:296]. He was granted 300 acres on the upper end of Marrs Bluff based on his petition of 4 August 1752 which stated that he had begun to cultivate land there and had two children and four slaves for which he had not been assigned any land [Holcomb, Petitions for Land III:56]. Land which had been surveyed for him in North Carolina on the north side of the Little Pee Dee River was mentioned in a 17 November 1753 Bladen County land entry [Philbeck, Land Entries: Bladen County, no. 904]. On 13 July 1755 he was granted administration on the estate of James Rowe, "late of Prince George's parish planter as greatest creditor," and on the same day he was granted administration on the estate of Matthew Driggers, also as greatest creditor [Record of Court Proceedings, 35, 97, 127].
He purchased two slaves (a boy named An[s?]lls and a girl named Hannah) from Sarah Sweat of North Carolina for 500 pounds on 28 November 1764, purchased seven slaves (Rillis, Benjamin, Lucey, Pleasants, Cander, Hannah and Nell) from John and Agnes Gibson (his son and daughter) on 7 April 1766, made a deed of gift of three slaves (Achilles, Pleasant, and Pleasant's youngest daughter Judith) to John and Agnes Gibson's children on 24 August 1767, and made a deed of gift to Mary Holland (his daughter?), wife of Joseph Holland, for 50 head of cattle, 50 hogs, 8 horses, and 10 sheep on his plantation at Marrs Bluff Ferry on 8 January 1770 [Miscellaneous Record Books MM:302-3, 371-2; OO:91-2, 222-3]. He was the father of...

Gideon2 Gibson, born say 1721 {1731?}, had been a resident of South Carolina for fifteen years on 12 December 1746 when he was granted a warrant for 50 acres at a place called Duck Pond on the south side of the Pee Dee River where he was then residing. He called himself Gideon Gibson, Jr., on the same day when he petitioned the South Carolina Council for 200 acres at Duck Pond for himself, his wife and two children [Holcomb, Petitions for Land from the South Carolina Council Journals, I:266]. He and his wife Martha were the parents of Sarah Gibson whose birth (on 29 July 1745) and baptism were registered in the parish of Prince Frederick Winyaw [NSCDA, Parish Register of Prince Frederick Winyaw, 15, 20]. On 2 September 1755 he recorded a plat for 200 acres on the southwest side of the Pee Dee River adjoining Jordan Gibson [Colonial Plats 6:45].

On 15 January 1760 he was paid 343 pounds by the Public Treasurer for supplying the militia in the campaign against the Cherokees [Clark, Colonial Soldiers of the South, 936]. On 15 February 1765 he was granted administration on the estate of John Herring and appointed guardian to John, Peter, Mary, and Hester G___eys of Prince George's Parish [Record of Court Proceedings, 97].

On 25 July 1767 as a leader of the Regulators, Gideon was involved in a skirmish with a constable's party near Marrs Bluff on the Pee Dee River. The incident brought matters between the Governor and the Regulators to a head. The South Carolina Gazette, which like the government was far removed from the location, reported in the 15 August 1768 edition that there were two parties of Regulators. One was made up of people of good principle and property, and the other made up of a gang of banditi, a numerous collection of outcast Mulattos, Mustees, Free Negroes, etc. all horse thieves from the borders of Virginia and other Northern Colonies ... headed by one Gideon Gibson...

Perhaps in a move to divide the two parties, Governor Bull pardoned all those involved except those persons concerned with the outrages and daring violences committed by Gideon Gibson and others upon George Thompson, a lawful constable, and his party, in the actual execution of a legal warrant, at or near Marrs Bluff, in Craven County, upon the 25th day of July last. ... 6 August 1768 [Council Journal, no. 34, 208-211].

Colonel Gabriel Powell, sent to arrest Gideon, arrived with 300 men, but to his utter humiliation, his men sided with Gideon saying he was "one of them" [Hooker, The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution, 177]. Powell resigned his commission and made a racist attack on Gideon Gibson in a discussion of the incident on the floor of Commons. Apparently, he fared little better amongst his colleagues of the Commons than he had in the back country. There are no minutes of the session, but a prominent Charleston merchant, Henry Laurens, was present and described the discussion years later in a letter to England:
Reasoning from the colour carries no conviction ... Gideon Gibson escaped the penalties of the negro law by producing upon comparison more red and white in his face than could be discovered in the faces of half the descendants of the French refugees in our House of Assembly... [Wallace, David Duncan, The Life of Henry Laurens, (N.Y. and London, 1915) by Jordan, White over Black].

Gideon was described by Gregg as a man of very marked character, of commanding influence, and prominently connected with the leading events of the region in which he lived. He was shot dead by his nephew, Colonel Maurice Murphy, during an argument over Murphy's mistreatment of an elderly Tory during the Revolutionary War [Gregg, History of the Old Cheraws, 354]. His children were... {Text truncated here - Tulanelink}

http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/gibson4_box.htm

Some members of the Gibson family moved to South Carolina in 1731 where a member of the Commons House of Assembly complained that "several free colored men with their white wives had immigrated from Virginia." Governor Robert Johnson of South Carolina summoned Gideon Gibson and his family to explain their presence there and after meeting him and his family reported, I have had them before me in Council and upon Examination find that they are not Negroes nor Slaves but Free people, That the Father of them here is named Gideon Gibson and his Father was also free, I have been informed by a person who has lived in Virginia that this Gibson has lived there Several Years in good Repute and by his papers that he has produced before me that his transactions there have been very regular, That he has for several years paid Taxes for two tracts of Land and had several Negroes of his own, That he is a Carpenter by Trade and is come hither for the support of his Family.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncjones/familyinfoslavemulattocolored.htm

• Deed: 108 acres, 1729, Bertie County, NC. 1729/30. Bertie Deed Book C, Page 276. Gideon Gibson (Gupson) to James Moore. 1729/30. 10 Pounds for 108 Acres in Northwest Parrish of Bertie on Southside Morattock River and Northside Concacanry Swamp. Part of tract formerly granted to Joseph Simes for 300 acres by patent dated February 1, 1725, and by Simes sold to Gibson. Witnesses are James Millikin, William Whitfield, Elizabeth Joyner. August Court 1730. Thomas Hansford D. C/C.

• Note: Sandy Bluff settlement, 1730s, Marion County, SC. In addition to the TURBEVILLEs and COLSONs, many other families that had previously lived on the Roanoke River moved to Sandy Bluff. Among them were the GIBSONs, CHAVIS[CHAVERS], Goins[GOINGS], and SWEETs[SWEAT]. According to GREGG, Gideon GIBSON was one of the wealthiest men at Sandy Bluff. He was also a "Free Man of Color".(31) So were the CHAVIS, GOINS and SWEAT families. All four families were related by marriage.(32)

Gideon GIBSON had lived near the Occoneechee Neck adjacent to land owned by Arthur KAVANAUGH, Ralph MASON, and Richard TURBEVILLE before buying land on Quankey Creek from Robert LONG[LANG], a Chickasaw and Cherokee Indian trader. LONG also owned land at Elk Marsh and Plumbtree Island. LONG had received his land patensts at Quankey Creek and Plumbtree Island on 1 March 1719/1720.(34)

James Logan of North Carolina and Virginia
Robert LONG and Gideon GIBSON were not the only woodsmen who lived at Quankey Creek in North Carolina. Joseph SIMS and James MOORE also lived there. Like the COLSONs and TURBEVILLEs of Plumbtree Island, these woodsmen traded with the Chickasaws. During the off-season they often rested at Sandy Bluff before returning to North Carolina. In 1732 Joseph SIMS and James MOORE witnessed the selling of land between two men from Albermarle County, North Carolina, at Quankey Creek. A third witness was James LOGAN.


From THE NORTH CAROLINA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL, Volume XX, No.2, May 1994, pg.82
JAMES LOGAN COLBERT of the CHICKASAWS:THE MAN AND THE MYTH, by Richard A. Colbert(1)
16 H Watertown Circle, Birmingham, AL 35235

http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/greybird7/genealogy.html

Marion County, SC (originally part of Craven County, Carolina)

Soon after John Godbold's arrival, a colony of Englishmen arrived and settled within twenty miles of his cabin. With names such as Britton, Davis, Giles, Fladger, Richardson, and others, this group founded a settlement they called Britton's Neck, and built a brick church there, one they named All Saints. Also in 1735, another group of Englishmen, including such names as Gibson, Murfee, Crawford, and Saunders, settled close by and built a second church, Prince Frederick's Church, and named their settlement Sandy Bluff. Malaria, or something more sinister, must have hit Sandy Bluff because it was soon abandoned and no trace of it remains.

http://www.carolana.com/SC/Counties/marion_county_sc.html

• Land: petition, 1747, SC. PETITION: 12 Nov 1747 as Gideon Gibson had a Warrant for abt 650ac in the Welsh tract and settled it abt 15 years ago and kept it as a cowpen with a servant on it for about two years & paid tax for same, being the Plantation now of Colonel Pawley's and delivered up being in the Welch tract. And has since settled at a place called Persimon Grove and has nine persons in family to wit - wife, 7 children and one negro for which your Pet'r never had any land but as above expressed, your pet'r prays to order a warrant to run out the land for himself and family and that he may have grants for same. Sig: Gideon (his mark) Gibson. Prayer granted. Ordered that the Deputy Secretary prepare a Warrant for 450ac.
[Page 54: Petitions for Land from SC Council Journals, Vol I 1734/5-1748, Brent H. Holcomb, SCMAR, Columbia, SC, 1996, p 297]

• Reference, 1755. Gideon Gibson: originally from the NC/VA border-Roanoke River area- names as administrator of the estate of Matthew Driggers on July 13, 1755. Gideon moved to SC in the 1730's and caused oncern among the white inhabitants because in 1731he came to the attention of the SC Commons House of Assembly when a member announced in chamber that several "free colored men with their white wives had immigrated from Virginia with the intention of settling on the Santee River." Gov. Robert Johnson of SC summoned Gideon and his family to explian their presence there and after meeting them reported:

"I have had them before me in council and upon examination find that they are not Negroes nor slaves but Free People, that the father of them here is named Gideon Gibson and his father was also free, I have been informed by a person who has lived in Virginia that this Gibson has lived there several years in good repute and by his papers that he produced before me that his transactions there have been very regular. That he has for several years paid taxes for two tracts of land and had seven Negroes of his own, That he is a carpenter by trade and is come hither for the support of his family...I have in consideration of his wifes being a white woman and several white women capable of working and being servicable in the country permitted him to settle in this country."

Gideon's son, Gideon Gibson (II) was living on the south side of the PeeDee River at a place called Duck Pond. On July 25, 1767 as a leader of the Regulators, Gideon was involved in a skirmish with a constable's party near Marr's Bluff on the Pee Dee River. The South Carolina Gazette reported in 15 Aug 1768 that Gibson's band of Regulator's was composed of;

"gang of banditi, a numerous collection of outcast Mulattos, Mustees, Free Negroes, etc. all horse theives from the borders of Virginia and other northern Colonies...headed by one Gideon Gibson..."

Henry Laurens, a prominent Charleston Merchant, described Gideon in this way;

"Reasoning from the colour carries no conviction...Gideon Gibson escaped the penalties of the Negro law by producing upon comparison more of the red and white in his face than can be discovered in the faces of half the descendants of the French refugees in our House of Assembly..."

Thomas Ivey; on 14 Aug 1809 in Marion District SC, Thomas Hagan refused to pay the tax on "all Free Negroes, Mulattoes and Mestizos" claiming that he was a white man. Two white men, Robert Coleman and John Regan testified that they were acquantied with with Thomas Hagans grandfather, Thomas Ivey when he had been living on Drowning Creek in NC. They stated that Ivey was "of Portuguese descent, that his complexion was swarthy, his hair black and strait - that his wife Elizabeth was a free white woman, very clear complexion." They testified that Thomas Ivey's daughter Kesiah Ivey married Zachariah Hagan and they were the parents of Thiomas Hagan.

[for an excellent website which details the early history of the eastern Siouan peoples and some of their modern day descendants in the NC/VA border refer to: <http://www.ibiblio.org/dig/html> look under the history portion.... PONY HILL

http://sciway3.net/clark/freemoors/Indian.htm]

• Land: not sure which Gideon, 1774, Edgecombe County, NC. 17 Oct. 1774 Edgecombe Co. deed, 2-175, William (B) and Jane (x) Burroughs to Peter Anderson, 100 acres North of Gideon Gibson's Branch that runs into the Swift Creek, witnessed by Edward (A) Adams and Thomas Hall.

http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/nc/bertie/bios/anderson3.txt
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/maps/north_carolina_map.html
Edgecombe is south of Halifax and west of Chowan Counties.

• Note: Dr. Lloyd Johnson: Campbell University, NC. The Regulator Movement is Johnson's Topic at Workshop

Dr. Lloyd Johnson, associate professor of history at Campbell University, presented a paper on the role of Gideon Gibson, a colonial person of color, in the Regulator Movement in South Carolina during the 18th century. It further explained why Gibson's race was not a factor regarding social position in the Welsh Tract in the South Carolina backcountry where he lived. Johnson spoke at the South Carolina Genealogical Society's 33rd Annual Workshop held at the South Carolina Archives and History Center in Columbia, July 9-10.

A Regulator movement developed in the 1760s in western South Carolina among groups interested in establishing law and order. Outlaw gangs had formed in the area and legislators failed on several occasions to provide funding for peace officers and local courts. Organizations of citizens were formed to regulate governmental affairs and they eventually operated the courts in some districts. The governor and the assembly eventually realized the legitimacy of the Regulators' cause and in 1769 enacted legislation providing for the necessary reforms.

Johnson's presentation explored the role of Gideon Gibson, a mulatto militia captain and substantial landholder in the South Carolina backcountry. Gibson helped instigate the Mars Bluff Affair in which he and a few other men held a British militia captain hostage and defeated other militiamen. The governor pardoned the others involved in the incident, but not Gibson. Local leaders came to his defense, however, and he was never punished for his actions. His children by his white wife married prominent area settlers, an indication that while slavery was becoming entrenched before the Revolution, racism had not yet begun to influence peoples' thoughts and feelings.

"The Mars Bluff Affair that Gideon Gibson helped instigate was the catalyst that brought courthouses and jails to the South Carolina backcountry," Johnson said. "He was an important figure in the Welsh Tract community of South Carolina."

Dr. Lloyd Johnson is the author of The Frontier in the Colonial South: South Carolina Backcountry, 1736-1800. He also published entries in the Encyclopedia of North Carolina History, the African-American Encyclopedia of History, and the Encyclopedia of South Carolina History. He has been a book review contributor for scholarly publications, including the Journal of Southern History, North Carolina Historical Review, the William & Mary Quarterly, Baptist History and Heritage, and the Georgia Historical Quarterly. Johnson has also appeared in the BBC documentary, "Roots in Wales," and presented at the 2000 British Association for American Studies convention. He has previously presented at the South Carolina Genealogical Society (SCGS) and the Hartsville Genealogical Workshop.

Founded in 1887, Campbell University is North Carolina's second largest private institution of higher education and the second largest Baptist university in the world. Located in Buies Creek, NC, just east of the center of the state, Campbell combines academic excellence and Christian commitment.

http://www.campbell.edu/news/releases/su04/ns_rel.0203.html
http://campbell.edu/faculty/Johnson/home.htm

Dr. Johnson is the author of The Frontier in the Colonial South: South Carolina Backcountry 1736-1800 (Greenwood Press, 1997).

Presented a paper "Gideon Gibson a Free Person of Color," at the South Carolina Genealogical Society's 33 rd Annual Summer Workshop, July 9-10, 2004, South Carolina Archives and History Center, Columbia, South Carolina.

• See also. http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/gibson4_box.htm

The Genealogical Materials of Lona Black Koltick at the Tennessee State Library and Archives
http://www.state.tn.us/tsla/history/manuscripts/findingaids/2004-099.pdf
BOX 4
9. Gibson, Gideon (c. 1700-1781)¯POWELL
10. Gibson, John
11. Gibson, Jordan (c. 1730-1788)¯ODOM
12. Gibson-Mississippi line
13. Gibson-Alphabetical Index-South Carolina

Gideon married Mary BROWN, daughter of William BROWN and Unknown, before 22 Oct 1728.

Gideon next married Martha.

  Marriage Notes:

maybe this is the wife of Gideon Jr.?