Mifflin Wistar Gibbs (1823 - 1915)

Born 17 Apr 1823 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Husband of Maria Ann (Alexander) Gibbs — married 29 Apr 1859 in Lee, Iowa, United States

Descendants

Died 11 Jul 1915 at age 92 in Little Rock, Pulaski, Arkansas, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: US Black Heritage Project WikiTree [send private message]

Mifflin Gibbs is a part of US Black history. Join: US Black Heritage Project Discuss: black_heritage

Biography

Mifflin Gibbs was a part of the Canadian Black Rights Activist Movement.

Mifflin Gibbs is Notable.

Mifflin Wistar Gibbs (April 17, 1823 – July 11, 1915) was an American-Canadian lawyer, judge, diplomat, and banker. In 2016, the City of Victoria declared November 19 "Mifflin Wistar Gibbs Day" in honor of his becoming the first Black elected public official in British Columbia.^[1]

Gibbs was the second of four Philadelphia-born siblings, the eldest being his brother, Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs. Their father was a Methodist minister who died when they were young. As a young adult, Gibbs became active in the abolitionist movement and worked for Frederick Douglass. He was also involved in the Philomatheon Institute of Philadelphia, a literary organization which included Douglass, Charles Burleigh Purvis, William Whipper, and Izaiah Weir. Philadelphia had long had a flourishing free Black community, as people had found work there even before Pennsylvania's abolition of slavery after the American Revolutionary War. In 1850 Gibbs was listed in the Philadelphia census with his widowed mother Maria and probable younger brother, Isaac. ^[2]

According to Wikipedia,

He moved to California as a young man during the Gold Rush and was an early Black pioneer in San Francisco. Gibbs published the first Black newspaper in California, and was an active leader in the early California State Convention of Colored Citizens.^[3]

Angered by discriminatory laws passed in California in 1858, he led a migration of African Americans to emigrate that year to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, where he worked for ten years. Gibbs became the first Black person elected to public office in British Columbia on November 16, 1866, upon winning a seat on the Victoria City Council.^[4]

Gibbs married Maria Ann Alexander on 29 April 1859 in Iowa.^[5] They had two daughters during the decade they lived in British Columbia. The family relocated to Oberlin, Ohio, in 1869, where both daughters later attended college. Mary Ann had attended Oberlin College from 1852 to 1854. Daughter Ida Alexander Gibbs (1862–1957) earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in English. Her sister, Harriet Gibbs Marshall went to the Oberlin Music Conservatory, where she completed the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in music in 1889. She became an accomplished concert pianist, author, and educator.

Gibbs settled in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he read the law to become an attorney and passed the bar examination in 1870. Becoming active in the Republican Party, he was appointed to a number of judicial and government positions, including county attorney of Pulaski County. In 1872, he was a delegate to the National Convention of Colored men in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1873, Gibbs was elected city judge as a Republican, the first Black judge elected in the United States.

In 1876, he was elected president of the National Convention of Colored Men at Nashville, Tennessee, and in June of that year he was appointed registrar of the United States Land Office at Little Rock, Arkansas. He was a delegate to the 1876, 1880, and 1884 Republican National Conventions, and was a one of the "immortal 306" who supported Ulysses S. Grant's failed candidacy for a third nomination at the 1880 convention in Chicago, Illinois. In 1882, Gibbs was elected to the Little Rock, Arkansas Bar Association.

He became wealthy through his law practice and real estate investments. In 1897, Gibbs was appointed American consul to Madagascar. He hired a friend of his daughter Ida, William Henry Hunt, whom he mentored, to be his aide in Tamatave, Madagascar. Hunt was appointed to succeed Gibbs as American consul in Madagascar and had numerous assignments after that. He served until 1932, and was the first African-American to have a full career as a diplomat for the United States.

Gibbs returned to the United States in 1901. He was selected as president of a largely African-American bank in Little Rock, Arkansas. M. W. Gibbs High School, a high school for African-American students, and Gibbs Elementary School, also originally for African-American students in segregated Arkansas, were named after him.

In 1902, Gibbs purchased a property at 902 T Street, NW in Washington, D.C., at which his daughter, Harriet Gibbs Marshall, ran the Washington Conservatory of Music, one of the most successful female-owned businesses in the United States at the turn of the century.

He died on July 11, 1915^[6] in his house on Chester Street in Little Rock after an illness of several months. He is buried at Oakland-Fraternal Cemetery.^[7]

In 2019, a plaque was unveiled in his honor at Irving Park in Victoria, British Columbia, as well as a study room called the "Mifflin Wistar Gibbs Study Room" in the city's public library.

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia:Mifflin Wistart Gibbs
2. ↑ 1850 Census: "1850 United States Federal Census"
   The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Philadelphia Locust Ward, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 814; Page: 125b; Line Number: 24
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 8054 #5017381 (accessed 12 October 2023)
   Steffler W Gibbs (26), Carpenter, in Philadelphia Locust Ward, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Born in Philadelphia.
3. ↑ Alison Rose Jefferson, "Pioneering Black Urbanites in San Francisco and Los Angeles," (California Historical Society, February 5, 2019). Retrieved February 4, 2023.
4. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "Mifflin Wistar Gibbs," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mifflin_Wistar_Gibbs&oldid=1150496791 (accessed April 23, 2023).
5. ↑ Marriage: "Iowa, U.S., Select Marriages Index, 1758-1996:" Ancestry.com. Iowa, U.S., Select Marriages Index, 1758-1996 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Iowa, Marriages. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013. Ancestry Record 60284 #3270001

   Name:	Maria A. Alexander
   Gender:	Female
   Marriage Date:	29 Apr 1859
   Marriage Place:	Lee, Iowa
   Spouse:	M.W. Gibbs

6. ↑ "Arkansas Death Index, 1914-1950," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VJR6-CRT : 27 November 2014), M W Gibb, 11 Jul 1915; derived from "Arkansas, Death Index, 1914-1950," database and images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : 2005); a multigenerational derivative citing Division of Vital Records, Arkansas Department of Health, Arkansas Death Index, 1914-1950 (Arkansas: Arkansas Genealogical Society).
7. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (Accessed 27 February 2021), memorial page for Mifflin Wistar Gibbs (17 Apr 1823–11 Jul 1915), Find A Grave: Memorial #8811614, citing Oakland and Fraternal Historic Cemetery Park, Little Rock, Pulaski County, Arkansas, USA; Maintained by Anonymous (contributor 17072231).

• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 11 July 2021, 21:35), entry for Mifflin Wistar Gibbs (PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:MTSY-GWQ ); contributed by various users.

See also:

• Wikidata: Item Q15490236, en:Wikipedia
• Kilian, Crawford. "Mifflin Gibbs". The Canadian Encyclopedia, 07 September 2018, Historica Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mifflin-gibbs. Accessed 27 February 2021.
• Daily Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, Arkansas 12 Jul 1915, Mon • Page 5 https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62052535/obituary-for-mifflin-wistar-gibbs-aged/
• "United States Census, 1910," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKLJ-6ZV : accessed 4 May 2021), M W Gibbs in household of N B Marshall, Precinct 8, Washington, District of Columbia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 155, sheet 4B, family 77, NARA microfilm publication T624 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1982), roll 153; FHL microfilm 1,374,166.