Louisa Gibson (b. circa 1832 – d.?)
MSA SC 5496-51354
Maryland State Colonization Society Emigrant to Liberia from Talbot
County, 1835
Biography:
Louisa Gibson was a free resident of Talbot County.1 She does not appear on the 1832 Talbot County Free Negro Census with other members of her family, suggesting that she may have been born in 1832 after the census took place.2 As a child, she emigrated from Maryland to Liberia with her parents Jacob and Rebecca Gibson, her siblings Joseph, Mary Ann, Henry, Samuel, and Garrison, and her cousin Ellen Gibson.3 The Gibsons left Baltimore on the schooner Harmony on June 28, 1835 and arrived at Cape Palmas, Liberia on August 23, 1835.4 Louisa's father, Jacob, died suddenly in 1836, and her mother married a William Delany on January 19, 1837.5, 6 The 1838 census recorded Louisa and her siblings living with her mother and step-father.7 However, by1840, her mother was widowed again and raising her children alone.8, 9 In 1843, Louisa was still living with his mother and likely lived with her until her death in 1847.10, 11 She then lived with her oldest brother Joseph, at least during 1848 and 1849.12, 13 In 1852, she appeared to be living in a household of orphans headed by Elizabeth Thomson, a forty-six year old teacher.14, 15
3. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (Papers of the Maryland State Colonization Society), Manumission Lists, 1832-1839, MSA SC 5977, Film Number M 13248-1, Emigrants, Lines 252-254. Lines 255-260.
4. Hall, Richard L. On Afric’s Shore: A History of Maryland in Liberia, 1834-1857. (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 2003), 451.
5. Ibid, 450.
6. Maryland Colonization Journal, September 1837, Vol. 1, No.12, p. 52.
10. 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.
11. Hall, 450.
14. Hall, 348, 451.
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