James Gibson (abt. 1740 - 1815)

Born about 1740 in County Tyrone, Ireland

Descendants

Died 15 Oct 1815 at about age 75 in Youngstown, Mahoning, Ohio

Problems/Questions Profile manager: David McCORMICK [send private message]

Biography

This profile is part of the Gibson Name Study.

James Gibson served as a lieutenant and as a captain with the Pennsylvania Flying Camp and later as a captain in the Regiment of Artillery Artificers in the American Revolution. See NSDAR No. 50981 and NSSAR No. 102713. See also: Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army in the Revolution, by Francis B. Heitman, published by the Rare Book Publishing Company, Washington, D.C. (1914) page 247.

James Gibson was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery, Mahoning County, Ohio.

JAMES GIBSON AND DESCENDANTS. James Gibson was born in Ireland in 1747, of Scotch-Irish parentage. At the age of sixteen he came to America with some friends, leaving his parents in Ireland, and settled in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1763. He worked at whatever he could find to do amongst farmers during the farming season, and went to school in the winter, chopping wood and grubbing mornings and evenings, and at the close of the term he would work one week extra to pay for his board.

At the breaking out of the Revolutionary war he enlisted in the American army and was afterwards made captain of a company of volunteers, in which capacity he served for five years, most of the time on scout duty, fighting Indians. He was married to Anna Belle Dixon in 1777. She had two brothers who were members of Captain Gibson's company, and were both killed in battle with the Indians while under his command.

James and his wife had five children born to them, four sons and one daughter. John, the oldest son, was born July 29, 1779. On that same day the whites were attacked by the Indians and a terrible battle took place in the neighborhood where they lived. The mother and infant were carried by their friends to the river, placed in a canoe and floated down stream to a place of safety.

Several of Captain Gibson's men were killed in this fight, among them one of Mrs. Gibson's brothers. Their home and its contents were burned. A few days afterwards another brother was killed. Gibson was the owner of a large bloodhound that always went with the company when out on duty, and was always first to discover the presence of an enemy, and many times by stopping and growling he indicated the Indian ambush and saved the volunteers from Indian mercy.

Some twenty years after the war was over an old Indian named Jaloway came through Ohio and stayed one day with him. Jaloway had learned to talk English, and told him that had it not been for his big dog he could have had his scalp on two different occasions, when he was lying in ambush and saw him out accompanied only by his dog, but he said he knew that it was not safe unless he could kill both the man and his dog at the same time.

They sold their farm in Cumberland county, in the year 1799, and came over the mountains in wagons through Pittsburg, Beaver, and Poland to Youngstown, Ohio. Coming up the Mahoning, south of Youngstown, they passed a large spring of clear water, which flowed out from the hillside. After examining the spring and viewing the land in that vicinity, they drove on to Youngstown, consisting at that time of three cabin houses. Their destination was Warren, where they arrived the next night.

They stayed that night with a man who came from their neighborhood in the early part of the season. His name was Davidson. After looking about Warren for land, the old gentleman thought there was nothing that would suit him as well as the farm with the big spring on it near Youngstown. He went back to Youngstown and bought the spring, with three hundred acres of land, from Daniel Shehy. He immediately returned to Warren and moved their goods back to Youngstown to the farm he had just purchased, arriving there on the 1st day of November, 1799.

There was a floorless cabin on the farm about fifteen feet square, and there had been about an acre of the timber cut off. They at once went to work and built a large cabin near the old one and split out puncheon for floors for both, and split clapboards for roof and doors. In order to provide shelter for their horses, they built sheds. They sold three of their horses and when they were unable to procure any more food for them, they put bells on the other two and turned them out to look for their own provender in the daytime, shutting them up at night.

Once they strayed away and John Gibson, the oldest son, after hunting two weeks, found them near Pittsburg. James Gibson had ten children, four boys and six girls. John Gibson was married to Miss Esther Davidson in 1801, by Rev. William Wick. His father gave him one hundred acres of the south side of lot forty-three in Youngstown township, on which he spent the remainder of his life. He purchased seventy-five acres more from an adjoining farm. They had ten children, four boys and six girls. Three of the girls are yet living.

John Gibson died October 28, 1833. His wife died in May, 1848, aged seventy-two years. The other sons of James Gibson, Robert, James, and Samuel, staid with their parents and cleared up the farm. In 1815 they bought two hundred and fifty acres more, lying on the west side of the original purchase. James Gibson, the elder, died in 1817; his wife died in March, 1836, at the age of eighty eight years. Robert D. Gibson and Lydia Marshall were married April 16, 1818. They had nine children, four of whom are now living, viz: Samuel, John, Mrs. A. O. Hine, and Mrs. James Neilson.

Lydia Marshall was the daughter of James Marshall, who came from Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, in 1807, and settled in Weathersfield township, Trumbull county, Ohio. In the spring of 1821 Robert D., James, and Samuel Gibson divided their lands. Robert took two hundred acres from the south end, and James and Samuel took three hundred and twenty-five acres on the north, extending to the Mahoning river. James Gibson was married to Miss Jane Riddle in May, 1833. They had one daughter.

He, James Gibson, was drowned in the spring of 1835, while trying to ford the Mahoning on horseback, at what was known as the Gibson fording. Samuel Gibson, the youngest of the four sons of James Gibson, was a deaf mute. He was a very large and strong man, kind hearted and industrious and systematic in all that he did. He was a great lover of horses and always kept his own in good order, and they were considered the best trained horses in the neighborhood. He conversed by motions of the hands and face, and took pleasure in telling of the privations of pioneer life and of the game he used to kill. He was very expert in the use of the rifle. He died in his seventieth year, never having been married.

Robert D. Gibson died at the old homestead, March, 1863, at the age of seventy-eight years. His wife died at the same place in August, 1873, at the age of seventy-seven years. After the death of James Gibson by drowning, the lands of James and Samuel, the mute, were divided. Henry Wick bought some two hundred acres of the river farm, and Robert McCartney twenty acres. Samuel kept the balance, including the big spring and the buildings. Robert's son Samuel afterwards bought the land that his uncle Samuel, the mute, had owned, and in 1870 sold a portion of it to Andrew Hitchcock. He resides on the balance near the spring. John Gibson, Robert's youngest son, lives on the old homestead.

There remains of the third generation Mrs. Stephen Saxton, of Poland, Ohio, about seventy years of age. Mrs. George Allen, about sixty-seven years of age, living near New Bedford, Pennsylvania; and Mrs. George Dickson, about sixty-two years of age, daughter of John Gibson; and Mrs. Brindley, living near Wheatland, Pennsylvania, the daughter of James Gibson, aged forty-eight years. James Gibson served about one year in the War of 1812. Robert D. Gibson served about three months in the same war.

History of Trumbull and Mahoning counties with illustrations and biographical sketches Published 1882 by H. S. Williams in Cleveland, pp.435-437. [1]

A more detailed account can be found in Capt. James Gibson and Anna Belle, his wife and their descendants by W.T. Gibson [2]

Research

Northumberland County

James, Annabella and the four sons were living in Northumberland County in 1790^[1]. The 1790 Census shows a man, woman and four boys under the age of 16, making it an exact match for their family. {Jeff Jones}

Revolutionary War Service

The bio above conflates the records of more than one James Gibson's service in the Revolutionary War. Given that we've confirmed he is the James GIbson in Northumberland, and he was there by at least 1781^[2], then he was the James serviing as a Lieutenant the Northumberland County Rangers in John Beatty's company^[3],^[4]. {Jeff Jones}

Sources

• Gibson, W.T., Capt. James Gibson and Anna Belle, his wife and their descendants : pioneers of Youngstown, Ohio [3][4]

• History of Trumbull and Mahoning counties with illustrations and biographical sketches Published 1882 by H. S. Williams in Cleveland, pp.435-436. [5]

• Pennsylvania Genealogies Chiefly Scotch-Irish and German - https://ia800205.us.archive.org/28/items/cu31924028856900/cu31924028856900.pdf

• Ancestor Chart submitted to the Murray Clan Society of North America, David A. McCormick, Falls Church, Virginia, 10 Aug 1986. Held in the archives of Clan Murray.

• Records in the archives of Clan Murray, held by the U.S. Genealogist of the Clan, Michael Thomas (Thomas-10705)

1. ↑ “James Gibson, Northumberland PA; ‘United States Census, 1790’ • FamilySearch,” 1790. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHKR-KG3.
2. ↑ Fold3. “Page 457, James Gibson, 150 Acres, Buffaloe Twp; Northumberland Tax Lists 1781; Series 3, Volume XIX; US, Pennsylvania Archives, 1660-1780,” 1781. https://www.fold3.com/image/3043652/supply-and-state-tax-lists-of-the-county-of-northumberland-for-the-years-1778-to-1788-page-457-us-pe?terms=james,northumberland,gibson.
3. ↑ Fold3. “Page 353, Series 3, Volume 13; Lt. James Gibson; Rangers on the Frontiers 1778-1783; Muster Rolls of the Name and Line, Militia and Rangers, 1775-1783; US, Pennsylvania Archives, 1660-1780,” 1783 1778. https://www.fold3.com/image/3082309/muster-rolls-of-the-navy-and-line-militia-and-rangers-1775-1783-with-list-of-pensioners-1818-1832-pa?terms=james,gibson. <ref>. The Captain James Gibson in the Artillery and Artificers, and Commissary General of Military Stores, was serving in the Continental Line at the same time, so must be a different James Gibson<ref>“#69 Captain James Gibson; Artillery and Artificers, Commissary General of Military Stores Department; U.S., Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783 ~ Ancestry,” 1781 1777. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/4282/images/miusa1775a_113549-00173?pId=1732399. </li> <li id="_note-3">[[#_ref-3|↑]] Fold3. “Page 1-3; Capt. James Gibson, AA, 1782; US, Pennsylvania Veterans Card Files, 1775-1916,” April 18, 1782. http://www.fold3.com/image/712547310/gibson-james-page-1-us-pennsylvania-veterans-card-files-1775-1916. </li></ol></ref>

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Steven Marsden for starting this profile.