William Jay Gibson (1838 - 1914)

Ancestors Descendants

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Books 1.1.1 The Story of a Thousand by Albion Winegar Tourgée, pages Bio, 47, Appendices, published by S. McGerald & Son, 1896 1.2 Letter-journal of William J. Gibson 1.3 Newspapers 1.3.1 1904-Jun-4, "Detroit Free Press" 1.3.2 1914-May-19, "Detroit Free Press" 1.4 Children's Birth 2 Sources

Biography

Commissary Sergeant in infantry in Civil War, - Union Army. Journalist employed by Detroit Free Press and later associate editor of Cincinnati Times Star. Had two daughters.

Books

The Story of a Thousand by Albion Winegar Tourgée, pages Bio, 47, Appendices, published by S. McGerald & Son, 1896

William Jay Gibson was born near New Castle, Pa., June 18 1838, and spent his boyhood on a farm. His father being accidentally drowned and his mother dying soon afterwards, the lad was thrown upon his own resources at an early age. When scarcely fifteen, with most of his worldly effects on his back, and $10 in his pocket, he set out on foot for the academy at Kingsville, Ashtabula County, O., ninety miles distant, where he was first pupil and afterwards a teacher. He volunteered under the first call for 75,000 men, but the company with many others, was not accepted. He resigned is position of assistant principal of Kingsville Academy and enlisted as a private in Company G, August 7, 1862. He was promoted to commissary sergeant at its organization and mustered out with the regiment June 3, 1865. Contrary to the usual custom of regimental commissaries who tarried in the rear with supply trains, Sergeant Gibson usually marched and camped with the regiment, and during the Atlanta campaign he took his chances with the rest in the trenches. Though often under fire he was never wounded, and had the rare good fortune never to be sick or off duty for a single day during the three years service.

At the close of the war, he spent several months in the oil regions of Pennsylvania, then removed to Ann Arbor, where he graduated in the literary department of the University of Michigan, in 1869. For several years thereafter he was a reporter and editorial writer on the Detroit Post and Detroit Tribune. In January 1886, he became associate editor of the Cincinnati Times-Star, a position he (1895) still holds.

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… Probably no regimental quartermaster (Marshall W. Wright) ever before had two as efficient quartermaster sergeants as Horatio M. Smith and George W. Cheney, or a commissary sergeant of such unpretending faithfulness or scrupulous exactness as William J. Gibson, a commissary who when the ration for each man during the siege of Chattanooga fell to less than five hard-tack each, for eight days, had the self control and rigid sense of justice to give himself only the four and a half he dealt out to the others. It seems a small matter to a man who has enough to eat, but that half-cracker which sergeant Gibson broke off from his own ration and cast back into the aggregate, at a time when men knelt about the place where rations were issued and picked up the crumbs which fell upon the ground, represented more self denial that can well be understood by those who have not been in like conditions. …

Letter-journal of William J. Gibson

Nov. 13. <1864>. In company with Warner (J. R.) and Cowles (E. R.) pass over Allatoona Heights and view the recent battle-field. Day very pleasant and scenery wild. Brigade tears up railroad and burns Ackworth and Big Shanty. Camp a few miles north of Kenesaw Mountain road. Read “Uncollected Writings of Charles Lamb,” like them well. ^[1]

Newspapers

1904-Jun-4, "Detroit Free Press"

The late Grace E. Gibson, who died May 30, bequeathed her entire estate valued at $6,000, to her husband, William Jay Gibson. ^[2]

1914-May-19, "Detroit Free Press"

DETROIT EDITOR OF NOTE IS DEAD

William Jay Gibson, 76 Years Old, Passes Away at Daughter's Home.

VETERAN OF CIVIL WAR AND U. OF M. GRADUATE

Served in Various Capacities on Different Newspapers, Leaving Many Friends

William Jay Gibson, for years a dominant figure on the editorial staff of the Detroit Post, veteran of the Civil war, and until his retirement in 1897, one of the best known newspaper men in Michigan, died at the home of his daughter Mrs. H. C. Hamilton, 80 Webb avenue, Monday. He was 76 years old.

Death came as the direct result of exhaustion following the fracture of his hip a short time ago. Mr. Gibson had been in ill health for the past 17 years being a sufferer from acute nervousness and in his weakened condition failed to rally from the shock of his injured hip. There is put one surviving member of his family, the daughter at whose home he died.

Born in Pennsylvania.

William Jay Gibson was born in Eastbrook, Lawrence county, Pa., in 1836, his parents having crossed the Allegheny mountains when western Pennsylvania was almost a wilderness and settled in the vicinity of what is now New Castle. He was of Scotch-Irish and English descent.

Left an orphan at an early age, Mr. Gibson worked his way through Kingsville academy in Ashtabula county, Ohio, and later secured his first position, that of instructor in that institution.

When the Civil War came he went to the front as commissary-sergeant of the One Hundred and Fifth Ohio volunteer infantry, made up almost entirely of students of the Kingsville academy. He served until the close of the ware, taking in the campaigns about Chattanooga and the march to the sea.

Ill Health Forced Retirement.

Returning to Michigan at the close of the struggle, Mr. Gibson entered the University of Michigan, where he was valedictorian of the class of 1869, and a classmate of Attorney Henry A Chaney and William A. Butler of Detroit. Immediately after graduation he joined the editorial staff of the Detroit Post, remaining with that paper in various capacities for eight years, after which he edited The Michigan Homestead, an agricultural paper. He was also connected at various times with the Post-Tribune, Detroit News and Cincinnati Times-Star.

Ill health forced Mr. Gibson's retirement from active newspaper work in 1897, and he returned to his farm on Grosse Ile. Soon afterwards his sight began to fail and in 1906 he became totally blind. His interest in newspaper work and Michigan newspapers continued keen to the last and his chief pleasure during the latter years of his life was talking over old time with his friends among the older newspaper men, of whom he knew many throughout the state. ^[3]

Children's Birth

"Michigan Births, 1867-1902," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NQJZ-QLT : 4 December 2014), William Gibson in entry for Mary Gibson, 22 May 1872; citing item 2 p 256 rn 1937, Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, Department of Vital Records, Lansing; FHL microfilm 2,297,932.

Sources

1. ↑ The Story of a Thousand by Albion Winegar Tourgée, page 334, published by S. McGerald & Son, 1896
2. ↑ "Detroit Free Press", Detroit, Michigan, 1904-Jun-4, page 10, https://www.newspapers.com/image/118595281/
3. ↑ "Detroit Free Press", Detroit, Michigan, 1914-May-19, page 3, https://www.newspapers.com/image/119541792/

• "United States Census, 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCG5-HSZ : 3 October 2017), William J Gibson, 1860.

• "United States Census, 1870," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MHC5-YFX : 12 April 2016), William Gibson, Michigan, United States; citing p. 130, family 1117, NARA microfilm publication M593 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 552,211.

• "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MW3R-7M7 : 22 August 2017), William Gibson, Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, United States; citing enumeration district ED 299, sheet 151D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), FHL microfilm 1,254,613.

• Find A Grave: Memorial #10164795 — Find a Grave, database and images (www.findagrave.com/memorial/10164795/william-jay-gibson : accessed 05 May 2021), memorial page for William Jay Gibson (18 Jun 1838–16 May 1914), Find a Grave Memorial ID 10164795, citing Woodmere Cemetery, Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, USA ; Maintained by Find a Grave (contributor 8) .

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

• 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.