NOTES: From Emma Johnson: Homer, an orphan, was a bound boy in Winchester, Loudon County, Virginia. At the age of 21 he was given a suit of clothes and $100.00 and followed his sweetheart, Martha South, who had moved with her family to Ohio, somewhere north of Somerton, Ohio.
If Martha South moved to this part of Ohio with her family at this particular time, the odds are very good that they were Quakers (though I can't recall seeing the name in the MM records--need to check that), and of course we're just one generation away from a marriage with the staunchly Quaker Williams family. When, where, and why did the orphan Homer acquire the name Gibbons? I think it's at least an interesting coincidence that a Joseph and Sarah Gibbons, with five children, came to the Concord Monthly Meeting in Belmont County (where the Williamses were) in 1805. Is there no connection at all?
Joe's note: Homer Gibbons - you think he could read and write?
Eli told Aunt Jean that neither Joseph nor his father (Homer) could
read
or write, and that both were possessive of anything their children
owned.
Homer was pretty much a mountain man. Remember that he grew up a bound
boy (indentured orphan) and that he probably was not a Quaker. Follow
that
logic through and you see why they both stayed illiterate. Homer's son
Homer actually went out west, probably became a cowboy or mountain man
himself.
Connie Abeln writes that Joseph Gibbons has an entry on page 634 of
the Centennial History of Belmont
County, Ohio, with lots of good information on Joseph and his
parents, so I have sent for that. She says that it reports that
Martha South was from New Jersey. Connie also notes that the
article says Joseph Gibbons was a Quaker, but that Borden Gibbons
fought in the Civil War.