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Mifflin Webster Gibbs

1823-1915

Mifflin Webster Gibbs 1823-1915

Name: Mifflin Webster Gibbs

Birthplace: Philadelphia

Status: Free Person of Color

Occupation/Training: Lawyer, Consul.

Residence: Philadelphia, San Francisco, British Columbia Oberlin Ohio, Little Rock

Abolitionist Involvement: Born of free parents, Mifflin Gibbs father a minister, died when he was a young boy. He became a carpenter's apprentice and later a journeyman. He futhered his literary skills thruough the Philomathean Institute a black literary society. He became active in the Underground Railroad and worked with persons such as William Still for some time. He accompanied Frederick Douglass on a speaking tour in western new York. While on tour, he was convinced to travel to the west, and went to California. He was forced due to racial prejudice to leave carpentry, and worked in a clothing store, which flourished. He thus became a prominent citizen in San Francisco. He attended the state Negro conventions in the 1850's. He became editor of the The Mirror of the Tmes, which was an abolitionist newspaper, and he wrote for the Alto Caliifornia, the leading black newspaper of the day. In 1858, he travelled to British Columbia, and purchased real estate, and became quite prominent there. He returned to the US to marry Maria Alexander, and they resided in Victoria, British Columbia till after the Civil War. While living in British Columbia, he still wrote for the cause of the abolition of slavery, and decided at the end of the Civil war to return to the United States. While living in Canada, however, he had studied law, and when he returned to the United States, he completed his training in Oberlin Ohio. In 1873 he set up law practice in Little Rock Arkansas, and was elected municipal judge of Little Rock, being the first person of African descent to hold such a position. He was a delegate to each Republican national convention till 1896. For three years he was appointed US Consul at Tamatave Madagascar. He wrote his autobiography in 1902. He died in 1915 at the age of 93.

Family: Parents--Jonathan C. and Maira Gibbs

Place of Death: Little Rock, Arkansas

Publications: Shadow and Light, an Autobiography with Reminences of the Last and Present Century 1902

Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=080327050X/6726-5433463-672014

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