Tobias Gibson’s Genealogy

Family records indicate Tobias Gibson’s father and grandfather both were named Jordan Gibson. According to best indications, the elder Jordan Gibson’s wife was named Hannah. He moved from Virginia to South Carolina about 1735.

“Of the Gibsons, Gideon and Jordan (Jr.) were brothers. The latter went to the West as a companion of Daniel Boone. Gideon came with his father from Virginia to Pedee. There is a public record of a grant to him for 550 acres of land as early as April, 1736. He settled at a place called Hickory Grove, five miles from Sandy Bluff, on a large and fertile body of land, long after noted as the most valuable in that region." (History of the Old Cheraws, p. 73)

Sandy Grove was on the north side of Little Pee Dee River.

Gideon Gibson married Mary O’Connell. Gideon (also called “Gibeon,”) and his wife, were the parents of Randall Gibson. Gideon was granted land in Marion District in 1748.

“Gideon Gibson was a man of very marked character, of commanding influence, and prominently connected with the leading events of the region in which he lived. His death took place during the Revolution.” (Cheraws, p. 74)

Gideon lived in Craven County, South Carolina (as it was then called), in 1780 and 1782, where he supplied livestock to General Marion’s brigade. It appears he did not die during the Revolution, but moved to Natchez, Mississippi. Land records placed Gideon Gibson in Natchez, Mississippi as early as 1788. Gideon granted “335 arpents, six miles from this Port” (Natchez), to “my son Randall Gibson,” dated 12 November 1792. Tobias’ first cousin, Randall Gibson along with his wife Harriett, became the first members of the Methodist Church in Mississippi.

Jordan Gibson, Jr., was born about 1720, most likely in Virginia. According to Gregg’s History of the Old Cheraws, Jordan was an associate of Daniel Boone. We do not know on which of the Boone expeditions Jordan Gibson, Jr., was a colleague of Daniel Boone, but there were numerous opportunities when the two men could have become associates.

Legal records indicate on 8 January 1754, Jordan Gibson, of Craven County, South Carolina, sold thirty head of cattle, branded I-G, to Hannah Sanders for 100 pounds. On 20 September 1759, Jordan Gibson purchased 300 acres of land in Anson County, North Carolina. Ironically, Tobias would later serve the Anson Circuit in 1799, immediately before leaving for Natchez. On 15 November 1768, Jordan Gibson sold 200 acres of land along the Little River in Craven County, land granted him on 1 July 1758. Gideon Gibson witnessed this deed of sale. By 1769, Jordan, Jr., settled with the other members of his family, in South Carolina. Poll records show he voted in the election for Assembly Member. In the 1790 census, Jordan Gibson owned sixteen slaves, some of whom he granted freedom in his will.

Jordan Gibson, Jr. and his wife, Mary Middleton produced six known children, all but one were male. The single female was Rhoda, or Rhody, and may have been the youngest child in the family. She moved to Mississippi by 1803. In his will, Tobias left a legacy to his sister, namely “a saddle horse, and after all debts are paid, all monies and debts due me and all income from my present crop.” The will indicated Rhody was unmarried at the time of her brother’s death in 1804.

Perhaps Tobias’ closest sibling was Nathaniel Gibson, Sr. We suspect he was born in the early 1740s, in Virginia or the Carolinas. Nathaniel married Rebecca Darby, and moved to Mississippi. He lived near present day Vicksburg, and died 22 April 1803. Bodies’ “History of Southern Families” Volume 7, records: “Nathaniel and Brother, Reverend Tobias Gibson, noted Methodist preacher, are buried in adjoining graves in Old Roach Place, Stout’s Station, 5 miles south of Vicksburg, Mississippi.”

A second brother of Tobias Gibson was Malachi, in South Carolina, probably in the mid-1740s, and killed by Indians in Mississippi in 1799. Since Malachi witnessed his father’s will in South Carolina in January 1799, and records show he died in Mississippi later that year, he may have traveled the same route his brother Tobias traveled, shortly before or after him. Tobias was only twenty-seven years old in 1799. Malachi and Rachel had a son whom they named Tobias Gibson, who was, and still is, often mistaken in historical records for his famous Methodist uncle.
A third brother was John Gibson. He was born in Liberty District, South Carolina, in 1749. John married Agnes Adair, and like most of his family, moved to the western frontier. Indians killed John Gibson on 14 June 1791 near Nashville, Tennessee. The report of John Gibson’s death, in Ramsey’s Annals of Tennessee, detailed a report by Haywood to the War Department, dated 2 June 1791. “The Indians killed John Thompson in his own corn field, within five miles of Nashville, on the 14th day of June they killed John Gibson and wounded McMoon, in Gibson’s field, within eight miles of Nashville.” Reference to “Gibson’s field” may indicate John Gibson owned land near Nashville. One may wonder what thoughts passed through Tobias’ mind as he later traveled, at least four times, through Nashville. Tobias was only nineteen years old when his brother John died.

Another brother, Stephen Gibson, married a woman named Mary. A land deed recorded 2 March 1804 in Marion District, South Carolina, indicated Stephen sold a plantation consisting of 1,557 acres. This land adjoined that of Gideon Gibson’s land, granted Gideon in 1748. In 1805, Stephen Gibson bought land in Claiborne County, Mississippi, in Walnut Bottom (Vicksburg). Stephen died about 1821, presumably in Mississippi.

Father of Mississippi Methodists

Tobias Gibson (1771-1804) was the first Methodist Circuit Rider to reach Mississippi in 1799. Gibson, a native of the Pee Dee Region of South Carolina, made an amazing journey from Charleston to Nashville, up the Cumberland River to the Ohio River, and then to the mighty Mississippi down to Natchez.

Gibson served his appointment to The Natchez Circuit, which encompassed the Wesleyan churches and communities from Natchez to Vicksburg. His nearest colleague was more than 500 miles away. He also traveled by horseback to annual conferences in Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas until his premature death in 1804.

This blog is dedicated to telling his amazing story of dedication, perseverance, and pioneering spirit. He was indeed a true American trailblazer.

The Asbury-Gibson Bond

Francis Asbury and Richard Wright set sail for America on 4 September 1771 as John Wesley’s emissaries to the growing Methodist constituency in the American Colonies. Asbury preached his first sermon in America at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 27 October 1771, just two weeks before Tobias Gibson was born in South Carolina. The lives of Asbury and Gibson would become interlaced with devoted friendship, mutual respect, and a common calling. The similarities in their lives were numerous.

Tobias Gibson was born along Great Pee Dee River, South Carolina on 10 November 1771. Tobias entered into ministry when he was still only twenty years old, in 1792. In 1799, at age twenty-seven, Gibson answered Bishop Asbury’s call to go to the far off Natchez District, then on the edge of the American frontier, very much like Asbury, who was twenty-six when he answered John Wesley’s call to go to America. Unlike Asbury, Gibson’s ministry was relatively short: just thirteen years. Gibson died 5 April 1804, near Vicksburg, Mississippi at the age of thirty-two and a half years.