Where the winds took them - the Gibbs odessey

Where the Gibbs family moved in the 1840s-50s.

Census 1840: my great times three grandfather, Hiram Gibbs (1785-1844) had been in Union County SC with a family of 6, including 1 slave.  The household was 1 white male age 20-29, 2 white females under 5, 1 white female 15-19, 1 white female 20-29, and 1 male slave 10-23.

But the age of the male is too young in the 1840 census as Hiram would have been 55 years old by then.  His youngest son (8) Hiram Jr. was born in 1829, so he also would not have been between 20-29 years old as a head of household. I very much doubt that that household belonged to Hiram Gibbs...and I wonder whose it was.

Here are the family dates:
wife Sabra Ann Wilbourn Gibbs 1792-1864
1. Dr. Jasper Gibbs 1810-1877
2. Thomas Gibbs 1812-1872
3. Mary Ann Gibbs Canfield 1814- 1864
4. William Wilbourn Gibbs 1816-1844
5. Lucinda B.Gibbs Rogers (Luci) 1818-1884
6. Sandford St. Johns Gibbs 1819- 1896
7. Angelina Gibbs 1822-1846
8. Hiram Gibbs Jr. 1829-1869

Hiram had older sons, who may have been between 20-29 in 1840.  Not his oldest, (1) Jaspar, who turned 30 in 1840, and though he had married in 1838, they only had their first child...nor the next one down, (2) Thomas, who didn't marry until 1848.  The next brother, (3) William, was 24, no info on his wife who buried him,  (4) Sandford St. John Gibbs was just 21, and he didn't marry until he was in his 40s.

So perhaps Hiram wasn't really part of the nose-count in 1840, though the house was still in his name.  But it seems as though a male and a female in the 20-29 age bracket would speak to a married couple with 2 little girls, and a teenage girl as perhaps a servant/nanny, and the one slave who could have been anywhere from 10-23 years old.

Could any of the daughters used his name as a head of their own household, if their husband was absent? Not the way I look at their ages and marriages. So I really don't know who this 20-29 year old couple with "Hiram Gibbs" as head of household, and 2 daughters under 5, could have been. There were no grandchildren born yet either. What a quandary!

Wait, let's look at Hiram's brothers and sisters, and his wife's family...I'm looking under every stone to figure out who was in that census in 1840!

There's a John Gibbs, Esq. on the same Union County SC census page as Hiram Gibbs in 1840.  But Hiram's older brother John had moved to KY before then.  Hiram's older brother Zachariah had a son John who didn't marry, but was born in 1810 so he would have been the right age.

OK, I'm not going to get an answer to that 1840 census...not tonight anyway.

Then in Jan 1841, Hiram is listed in Panola County MS as head of a household made up of 3 males and 4 females.   Another male has joined the household, but this census didn't have ages listed, nor slaves.

I do have a record that his son (4)William was living there in MS with him, because that's where he died in 1844.  And that's also where Hiram died the same year.

None of the rest of the family who I have any records about was in MS.

Oldest son, (1) Dr. Jasper Gibbs, moved to Gibsland, Bienville Parish, LA...and I spoke about him here.  I wish my cousin, Denton Culpepper,  had sent me a photo of the Gibbs house which he wrote in 2016 that he currently owned.

(2) Thomas Gibbs married Nancy Theressa Rogers from Sevierville, TN by 1848, but where isn't noted in Ancestry.  They lost their first two babies when they were born shortly after that, in TX where they had relocated with many other Gibbs family members.  Nancy died in 1856, and Thomas remarried about 1859 and later moved to Arkansas while raising more children.

(3) Mary Ann Gibbs Canfield moved first to Mount Lebanon, Bienville Parish, LA,  where her only child was born, then was living in Freestone, TX by the time she died, but she was buried in Bienville Parish LA.

(5) Lucinda (Luci) Gibbs Rogers moved first to Bienville Parish LA, then to Huntsville, Walker County TX, with her husband George Washington Rogers (my great great grandparents).  (Past posts Here, and HERE,  and Here.)

(6) Sandford married and had his first daughter born in TX in 1857, but then his wife and baby both died in 1863. He remarried in 1866 and had 7 more children, all in Huntsville, TX.

(7) Angelina didn't marry and died in LA.

(8) Hiram Gibbs Jr (son of Hiram my great times 3 grandfather) married and died in Mount Lebanon, LA.  There was another Hiram Gibbs Jr. by that time, so knowing who the father was makes a difference.

What of Hiram's wife, Sabra Ann Wilbourn Gibbs?  She moved to the Huntsville, Walker County TX  homestead before she died at age 74.  But apparently her mother died in the same place in MS that Hiram had, Panola County, in 1851.  And Sabra had 11 brothers and sisters all from Union County SC.  I haven't checked yet but I'll bet some moved to LA and some to MS.

Union County just didn't have enough room for all those people in the 1850s and land out west was cheap.

So where they went summary:
father Hiram - MS
Mother Sabra -TX

 children...
Jaspar - LA
Thomas - TX then AK
Mary Ann - LA
William - MS
Luci - TX
Sandford - TX
Angelina = LA
Hiram - LA

Today's quote;

WORD FOR THE DAY I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being!

Hafiz