Summary Information
Gibbs Family Papers
1762-1918
U.S. Mss Y; Micro 1117; PH 3696; PH 3697
1.6 cubic feet (3 archives boxes and 1 flat box), 3 reels of microfilm (35 mm), 11 photographs, and 50 drawings
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Papers of the Gibbs family of Rhode Island and Connecticut, consisting of chronological family and business correspondence for several members of the family, including George Gibbs (II, III, IV, V), Laura Wolcott Gibbs, Oliver Wolcott (her father), and Oliver Wolcott Gibbs. For George Gibbs III there is correspondence and business papers concerning his trip to China in 1796, a collection of minerals sold to Yale University, and family affairs. For George IV, ethnologist and geologist, there is correspondence on scientific concerns, social and economic conditions of Oregon and Washington Territory at the time of the gold rush; political letters discussing important men and events of the day and the Mexican and Civil wars, photographs and drawings, and various reports to George B. McClellan on the geological and ethnographic character of Washington Territory. From scientist Oliver Wolcott Gibbs there are letters to his family and friend William H. Channing concerning European scientists of the period and the political unrest which led to the Revolution of 1848. For George Gibbs V there is a 1918 diary concerning his work in Russia with the Railroad Commission.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us00000y ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
George Gibbs II (1735-1803) was a prosperous shipping merchant in Rhode Island in partnership with his brother-in-law, William Channing. Their fleet of trading vessels sailed to all parts of the world from the West Indies to China, Russia, and the Mediterranean, and at his death Gibbs left a fortune valued at $700,000.
His eldest son, George III, was born at Newport in 1776 and was sent to China at the age of twenty in the expectation that he would succeed his father in business. However, he was more attracted by travel and intellectual pursuits, especially mineralogy. In Europe he began gathering a large collection of mineral specimens, which he eventually sold to Yale University for $20,000. In 1810 he married Laura Wolcott, the fifteen-year old daughter of Oliver Wolcott, the secretary of the treasury during the administrations of Washington and John Adams. They had four sons, George IV (1825-1873), Oliver Wolcott (1822-1908), Alfred (1823-1868), and Francis Sarason (1831-1882) and three daughters, one who died in infancy, Elizabeth Wolcott (1819-1906), and Laura Wolcott (1827-1908).
Two of the boys followed the scientific bent of their father. George IV was educated at Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts under the direction of George Bancroft, the historian, and Joseph S. Cogswell. Unsuccessful at entering West Point because of his family's Whig political affiliation during a period of Democratic ascendancy, Gibbs studied law at Harvard and began practice in New York City. However, he abandoned the profession to become librarian of the New York Historical Society from 1842 to 1848. Eager to see the West, particularly after the news of the gold rush of 1848, Gibbs accompanied the Mounted Rifle Regiment from St. Louis to Oregon in 1849. During the next few years he unsuccessfully speculated in land and prospected, but his main interests were studying the local Indians and mapping the topography and geology of parts of the Northwest. In December 1852, he was appointed collector of the Port of Astoria, a post which he held until April 1853, when a Democratic administration resulted in new federal appointments. George IV was also attached to the Northwest Boundary Commission as a geologist, and he served under Captain George B. McClellan, commander of the Western Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad Expedition which surveyed the Cascade Mountains and the Olympic Peninsula. In 1857 he became a member of the Boundary Commission, remaining in Washington Territory until 1860 when he returned to Washington, D.C. to become secretary of the Hudson Bay Commission. During the Civil War his health prevented active military service, but he spent much of his time in the capital, where he was connected with the Smithsonian Institute, which published a number of his ethnological reports and studies.
Oliver Wolcott Gibbs (usually referred to as Wolcott Gibbs) was an even more celebrated scientist than his older brother. Although a graduate of Columbia and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Wolcott Gibbs did not intend to practice medicine, but instead was primarily interested in a career in chemistry and physics research. In 1845 he went to the University of Berlin to study in the laboratories of Heinrich Rose and Carl Rammelsberg. A year later he went to Giessen to study organic chemistry under Liebig. From there he journeyed to Paris, and by the time he returned to the United States in 1857 he was well-schooled in the best scientific theory of his day. After a year lectureship at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and at Delaware College in Newark, Delaware, he became professor of chemistry at the newly-founded Free Academy (now the College of the City of New York). In 1862 he became professor of chemistry and physics at Harvard. He remained there until his retirement in 1887. In his private laboratory at Newport he carried on research for another ten years, and during his long career he made many notable advances in physical chemistry, inorganic compounds, and analytical methodology.
Of the other sons of George Gibbs III, Alfred graduated from West Point and served as an officer in the Mexican and Civil wars before his death at Fort Leavenworth. Francis engaged in business, primarily in the grain export trade. George Gibbs V, the son of Francis, had a distinguished career as an electrical engineer and inventor.
Further information about the Gibbs Family may be found in The Gibbs Family of Rhode Island.
Scope and Content Note
The papers, which are primarily arranged in chronological order, date from the time of George Gibbs III. Included among the correspondence of George III is a letter of advice from his father prior to his trip to China in 1796. An acute observer, young George wrote from Canton (Guangzhou) of his voyage and of his impressions of China: the price which American merchants had to pay for the privilege of trading in Canton, the oppressiveness of the mandarins, and the quality of silks and tea available. During the period from 1797 to 1815 there is considerable business correspondence, some of which is personal, relating to sales of lands, leases, stocks, and so on, but part of which concerns the affairs of Channing and Gibbs. The latter group contains interesting hints of the difficulties which beset the firm, whose ships were harassed by the restrictions and decrees of the Napoleonic Wars and by the marauding Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean. A number of letters and documents from 1808 to 1825, mainly from Colonel Gibbs to his friend Benjamin Sillimon of Yale show Gibbs' interest in his mineral collection and trace the progress of its transfer to Yale.
Oliver Wolcott wrote frequently to his daughter and son-in-law George III. Many of these family letters from 1812 to 1827 are in the collection. One finds but brief mention of his first election as governor of Connecticut in 1817 or of other politics, but there are interesting comments on such events as the affectionate reception accorded LaFayette in Congress or on the replacement of hand looms by water power in the local Connecticut woolen factory. In addition, there is a small group of typewritten copies of letters written by Wolcott between 1801 and 1806, notable for his frank Federalist statements and opposition to the Jefferson administration. As Wolcott had on several occasions occupied a controversial position in the Federalist Party, it is interesting to learn from a letter dated January 22, 1826 that he was not dissatisfied with the part he had played in public life, and also that it was his intention at that time “to preserve the whole” of his manuscripts and letters. A year later part of his library of annotated books was seized for an unpaid debt, which provoked Wolcott to write an appeal for its return, but his lawyer dissuaded him from using it. Barred in 1802 from the circuit court judgeship to which Adams had appointed him, he thought of appealing to Congress for compensation; the appeal which he began to compose is among the undated manuscripts.
A large portion of the correspondence and other papers is related to George Gibbs IV. His letters begin with a well-printed boyish note to his grandfather. By the time he was in his late teens his interest in minerals, insects, and other aspects of science had developed, and he wrote (March 17, 1833) an enthusiastic account of his visit to Audubon, who had given him a Florida sea shell in exchange for a moth. That he contemplated historical work as early as 1837 is evident from a letter of advice and encouragement from his former school master, George Bancroft. As there are few letters between 1834 and 1847, reference to Gibbs' Memoirs of the Administration of Washington and John Adams, published in 1846 and based on the papers of his grandfather, Oliver Wolcott, are scarce. A considerable number of his letters to his mother and to his brothers have been preserved. When Alfred was in Mexico, the correspondence contains interesting commentary on army personages such as Scott, Kearney, Sheridan, and Fremont, and on Whig politics. After George went to Oregon and Washington, the letters give not only an interesting account of his own mining activities and scientific studies, but also describe social and economic conditions in the territory and give his frank opinion of some of the territorial politicians and office holders, especially those Whigs who succeeded him in 1853.
The story of his connection with the Northwest Boundary Survey is largely missing, as there is a gap in the correspondence from June 1853 to 1861. There is, however, a copy of his memoir on the U.S. Military Road from Fort Vancouver to Fort Steilacoom, his May 1, 1854 report to McClellan on the geological structure of Washington Territory, and his 1856 report on the Indians to I.I. Stevens. Drawings and photographs pertaining to this phase of his career are available in the Society's Visual and Sound Archives, but they also appear on the microfilm edition of the collection. Similarly three maps made or used by Gibbs in his Indian studies have been filmed with the collection, although they are catalogued as part of the Society's map collection.
During the opening months of the Civil War there is correspondence not only written by George Gibbs to his family, but also a group of letters to him from John Austin Stevens Jr., prominent New York financier, who recorded his conference with Salomon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, concerning the cost and financing of the war. Although both were Republicans, Gibbs and Stevens were frequently sharply critical of Lincoln and other figures in his administration. From 1865 to 1869 there are a few letters from George Gibbs to his family containing reports on a visit with Seward and his son after their attempted assassination, on a talk with George Pickering of Washington Territory, and on President Johnson's unpopularity and impeachment trial.
The letters of Oliver Wolcott Gibbs include some written to his family and to his friend, fellow inventor, and cousin, William F. Channing, while Gibbs was a student in Europe from 1845 to 1847. He wrote in detail of his work, his impression of European scientists (Berzelisu, Rose, Liebig, and others), and of the unrest in Europe which he prophesied would eventually lead to revolution. Likewise, he expressed his mind on American science and politics, particularly the war with Mexico, which he regretted as imperialism.
After 1869 there are only a few scattered letters, with the exception of a small group written by George Gibbs V in 1880 in Europe on a vacation trip and his 1918 recollections of his trip to Russia as part of the Railroad Mission. This journal was reprinted in the Spring 1979 issue of The Wisconsin Magazine of History. In addition, the collection also includes a file of genealogical material on the Gibbs and Wolcott families and a number of oversize diagrams and maps. All of this material appears on the microfilm, although the original maps are catalogued as part of the Society's map collection.
Administrative/Restriction Information
Placed on deposit by Mrs. J.J. McGrath in 1948; gifted in 1978. Accession Number: M78-183
Prepared for microfilming by William Beaudreau and Carolyn J. Mattern, 1982.
Contents List
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U.S. Mss Y/Micro 1117
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Correspondence
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Box
1
Reel
1
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1762, 1796-1834
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Box/Folder
2/1-6
Reel
2
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1835-1856
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Box/Folder
2/7-8
Reel
3
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1860-1873
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Box/Folder
3/1-2
Reel/Frame
3/001
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1880, 1886, 1889-1903
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Box/Folder
3/3
Reel/Frame
3/322
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Undated
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Box/Folder
3/4
Reel/Frame
3/495
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Genealogical material on the Gibbs and Wolcott families, undated
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Box/Folder
3/5
Reel/Frame
3/530
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Russian journal, 1918
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Reel/Frame
3/651
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Photographs and drawings
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PH 3696
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Original photographs
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PH 3697
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Original drawings
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U.S. Mss Y/Micro 1117
Reel
3/737
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Maps and diagrams
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Original maps in Map Collection
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Box
4
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Original Diagrams
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