John B. Gibbs

Quick Facts

Significance:

Businessman, Temperance advocate, 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee Member

Place of Birth:

Maine

Date of Birth:

c. 1821

Place of Death:

New York, New York

Date of Death:

March 1896

Place of Burial:

New York, New York

Cemetery Name:

Woodlawn Cemetery

Boston temperance advocate and businessman John B. Gibbs served on the 1850 Boston Vigilance Committee.

Born in the 1820s, John B. Gibbs grew up in a small village in Maine. He later moved to Boston where he married Mary Burns and had two children. In the city, he operated several successful restaurants and establishments, including the Gibbs Hotel. A staunch supporter of the temperance movement, Gibbs merged his beliefs and business at his hotel which he billed as "a Temperance House, and the proprietors are determined to adhere strictly to total abstinence principles."¹

Gibbs also participated in the antislavery movement. Following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, Gibbs and others met at Faneuil Hall to publicly denounce the new law and determine their course of action. At this meeting, participants created the third and final Vigilance Committee and appointed Gibbs as a member. Though his specific contributions remain unknown, the Vigilance Committee provided much needed support to freedom seekers coming to and through Boston on the Underground Railroad.²

Gibbs moved to New York City in the 1850s where he opened several eating establishments. He continued his involvement in the temperance movement until his death in 1896.³

If you are a researcher or descendant of John B. Gibbs and can provide any further details of his work on the Vigilance Committee, please e-mail us.

Footnotes

1. The National Archives in Washington, DC; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Boston Ward 7, Suffolk, Massachusetts; Roll: 336; Page: 15a, Source Information, Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA; "Noted Temperance Worker Dead," Boston Globe, March 29, 1896, 2; Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry. Original data: Town and City Clerks of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Vital and Town Records. Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jay and Delene Holbrook).; "Temperance Meeting," Boston Herald, January 24, 1852, 4; George Adams, Boston City Directory, 1850-1851, 166; George Coolidge, Boston Almanac: for the year 1850 (Boston: B.B. Mussey & Co., 1850), 199; "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society. NPS maps geo-locate Gibbs at the approximate location of the Gibbs Hotel - Massachusetts Block, Court Square (as stated in the broadside).
2. "Fugitive Slave Meeting," Boston Evening Transcript, October 15, 1850, 1; "Members of the Committee of Vigilance," broadside printed by John Wilson, 1850, Massachusetts Historical Society; Austin Bearse, Remininscences of Fugitive Slave Law Days in Boston (Boston: Warren Richardson, 1880), 4.
3. "With Beauty Gone The Business Failed," Evening World, August 2, 1888, 2: "An Unredressed Assault," New York Daily Herald, January 27, 1879, 10; "John B. Gibbs," New-York Tribune, March 30, 1896, 7; "Noted Temperance Worker Dead," Boston Globe, March 29, 1896, 2.