Garrison Gibson (b. circa 1830 – d. ?)
MSA SC 5496-51350
Maryland State Colonization Society Emigrant to Liberia from Talbot
County, 1835
Biography:
Garrison (or Garretson) Gibson was a free resident of Talbot County, who emigrated from Maryland to Liberia with his parents Jacob and Rebecca Gibson, siblings Joseph, Henry, Mary Ann, Samuel, James, and Louisa, and his cousin Ellen Gibson. The Gibsons left Baltimore on the schooner Harmony on June 28, 1835 and arrived at Cape Palmas, Liberia on August 23, 1835.2 Garrison's father, Jacob, died in 1836, and his widowed mother married a William Delany on January 19, 1837.3, 4 The 1838 census recorded Garrison and his siblings living with his mother and step-father.5 However, his mother was widowed again, some time between 1838 and 1840. Garrison probably remained with his mother unitl her death in 1847 as he is recorded living with her on the 1840 and 1843 censuses.7, 8 Following her death, siblings Garrison, Henry, and Louisa lived with their oldest brother, Joseph, and family in 1848 and 1849.9, 10 After Henry married, Garrison was recorded living with him and his wife in 1852.11, 12 Garrison's nomadic living arrangements were not unusual in the colony. As parents died, minor children frequently moved from household to household, living with step-parents, older siblings, or family friends who took them in.
2. Hall, Richard L. On Afric’s Shore: A History of Maryland in Liberia, 1834-1857. (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2003), 451.
3. Ibid, 450.
4. Maryland Colonization Journal, September 1837, Vol. 1, No.12, p. 52.
6. Hall, 450.
8. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (Papers of the Maryland State Colonization Society), Subscribers Reports Census, 1817-1902, MSA SC 5977, Film Number M 13247-1, 1843a Census.1843b.
12. Hall, 450.
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