John C. GIBBENS

• General Notes
  • b. MD est. 1776
    m. Hardy Cty, VA abt. 1795 to Katherine HERBERT (b. 1782)
    d. Aug 1807 of yellow fever (jaundice)
    buried in the Prebble Graveyard, 12 mi. up the Kenawha River
    
    "John Gibbens, the first husband of Catherine Herbah, was tall, six feet, weight averaged 155, was slender, dark hair, eyes grayish-blue, manner gentle but positive."  (G-B, p. 107)
    
    The Gibbens-Butcher Genealogy (1894), reviewing extant land documents bearing the name of John's brother James:  "...This gives opportunity to infer that the two brothers, John and James, were then passing across the wilderness of the West, and that eventually one went to Kentucky, then a county of Virginia, and the other, our grand-parent, found a home nearer the Ohio, on the shores of the Little Kanawha river."
    
    The book strongly implies that Native Americans set fire to John and his wife Katherine's home ("in Hardy county, near the foot of its lofty peaks, in the dense forests") and possessions shortly after their marriage, as happened to "many of the pioneers who, enamored of the rich soil, and pure air, and ample space for free homes, with nature's game preserves, ventured into the hunting grounds of the Indians west of the Alleghanies."
    
    The book continues:  "Soon after, John Gibbens moved west to Wheeling, where two children, a son and a daughter, were born [prob. either James and Rachel, or Jefferson and Elizabeth].  Thence, about the year 1800, they migrated to the Little Kanawha river, near the mouth of Stillwell creek.  He felled the forests, tilled the soil, hunted game for the table, and raised his growing family; and in August, 1807, died and was buried in Pribble's graveyard, twelve miles above the mouth of the river.  Out of the grave grew, years after, a stately tree, which only recently was cut down and borne away.  ...John Gibbens is said to have been a man of fine presence and physique, energetic, fearless, but retiring in disposition and gentle in voice and manner -- a fair specimen of English Virginia manhood.  He left to the widow six children and a seventh [Louisa] to be born with three months of his demise."
    
    Died of yellow fever, "prevalent in wilderness days."
    
    G-B:  John's son Jefferson watched as his father's "remains [were] borne across the threshold of their pioneer cabin, toward its last resting place in a neighboring burial ground.."
    
    more on yellow fever:
    Yellow fever is a viral haemorrhagic fever transmitted by infected mosquitoes.  Yellow fever (YF) can be recognized from historic texts stretching back 400 years. Infection causes a wide spectrum of disease, from mild symptoms to severe illness and death. The "yellow" in the name is explained by the jaundice that affects some patients, causing yellow eyes and yellow skin.
    
    source:  WHO
    

Click here for details of John C.'s family with Katherine HOROBAUGH

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