Peter Gibbons III (1730 - 1822)

Born 9 Apr 1730 in Waltham, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Ancestors

Husband of Sarah (Green) Gibbons — married 7 Dec 1751 in Hardwick, Worcester, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Descendants

Died 6 Dec 1822 at age 92 in Granville, Hampden, Massachusetts, United States

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Melanie Armstrong [send private message] and Tanya Warren [send private message]

Biography

Peter Gibbons was born on 9 Apr 1730 in Waltham, Middlesex, Massachusetts Bay Colony his father, Peter Gibbons and his mother, Elizabeth Warren.

In 1747, Jedidiah How of Brookfield was appointed guardian of Peter, aged about 17 years.^[1]

He married Sarah Green on 7 Dec 1751 in Hardwick, Worcester, Massachusetts Bay Colony. He died on 6 Dec 1822 in Granville, Hampden, Massachusetts and buried in Main Road Cemetery, Granville, Hampden County, Massachusetts.

Sources

1. ↑ "Probate records v. 101-105 1737-1758" database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9YY-S996-M : 6 March 2024), Film# 007704228, Worcester, Massachusetts, image 314, Vol 101, Page 239.

Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988

• Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
• Original data: Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and tTown Records. Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook).
• Boston Births from 1721 to 1733 listed on pages 256-257 for:
  • (p 256) "Peter, son of Peter & Elizabeth...........Born 25 Feb 1726
  • (p 256) "Thomas, son of Peter & Elizabeth......Born 14 Aug 1728
  • (p 257) "Elizabeth, dau of Peter & Elizabeth....Born 30 Jan 1729

• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/45468770/peter-gibbons: accessed 07 July 2023), memorial page for Peter Gibbons Jr. (9 Apr 1730–6 Dec 1822), Find A Grave: Memorial #45468770, citing Main Road Cemetery, Granville, Hampden County, Massachusetts, USA; Maintained by Lucy (contributor 47025941).

• "Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCQT-9M8 : 14 January 2020), Peter Gibbons, 1730.

• "Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q29L-DS5P : 19 May 2022), Peter Gibbons and Sarah, 07 Nov 1751; citing Marriage, Granville, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, British Colonial America, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Boston; FHL microfilm 004255438.

• https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/101837-a-turning-of-hearts-william-davidson-gibbons-family-history?offset=3. BOOK: A Turning of Hearts: William Davidson Gibbons Family Histoy

Excerpts from: Peter Gibbons (1730-1822) "A Short Narrative of My Life"

Full transcript available at the History Room of the Granville, Massachusetts Public Library, 1996. Transcribed here by Tanya Warren. Clarification notes in parentheses.

My father was an only son and he lived in Boston and he was a ship joiner and got his living by his trade. He married Elizabeth Warrin (Warren) who was my mother. They had two children, a son (Peter) and a daughter (Elizabeth), the son (Peter) died when he was a child before his father died. My father, catching the smallpox died with it and left my mother pregnant with me which was about Christmas 1729. My mother taking the smallpox had it very hard but got well and went from Boston to her father's in Waltham where I was born the 9th of April 1730 which was about three months and a half after the death of my father. When I was about six months old my Aunt How (Abigail Warren How) soon after she had lost her sucking child and having no other child she took me and brought me home with her and suckled me six months longer and became mother to me and I always called her mother. She was a kind mother to me and so was father as kind (Jedediah How aka Howe), he kept me in his care until I was almost 17 then he bound me to John Bradish in Hardwick to learn the trade of tanning and shoemaking. When I was 18 father sold his farm at Westborough and moved to Brookfield and let me out for that summer to a farmer in Westborough where I broke my ankle and became a cripple and so I lost the summer. In the fall I went to him in Brookfield, and he agreed with Bradish to take me as an apprentice. I went to him in Jan. 24th 1747. My sister dying the December following, I was left alone, no more of the name left but my mother and she (Elizabeth Warren Gibbons) lived in Boston. (Here Peter Gibbons, writing this in advanced old age writes) I am so slow and blind, I make a great many mistakes, my mind runs faster than my pen, but to proceed. When my time was out with Bradish, I worked at shoemaking the main of the summer and in the fall I was married to Sarah Green, sister to Bradish's wife and father How gave me 12 acres of land in Hardwick... (At this point in his narrative, he describes his father ( Jedidiah How) giving him 12 acres of land in Hardwick to set up a farm, shop and house for his new family.) I set up my trade...and gained property so fast that when I was six and twenty I thought I was doing well...but old Sergeant Church, coming to Hardwick the winter following, invited me to come and settle this lot ( in Granville, MA) and I refused it but he got my wife engaged to go into the woods, and then both of them worried me out and got me to yield to come and settle on this rocky mountain and that just undid me and when I got here I was as poor as poverty itself." (Fortunately, the Gibbons family survived the howling wilderness of Granville and succeeded in building up property and having success at his trade of shoemaking). "I got to live tolerably comfortable and ride a good horse..."

There are many more pages of Peter's narrative including lists of children and grandchildren, his memories of the Revolutionary War and weather oddities. In addition to his archives at the Granville, MA Library, the following is available online: "A turning of Hearts" 1981 compiled by Helen Bay Gibbons. Wm. D. Gibbons Family Organization, pub: Remember When, Oren, Utah