May 23

Col. John Gibson was born 23 May 1740

This is the FindAGrave memorial for John Gibson. He is a relatively famous historical figure from our Gibson ancestry. The Gibsons are connected to the Burford family by the marriage of Lora Gibson to Alexander Oscar Burford. 

There are some fascinating stories about John Gibson and his son Nicholas, which are easily found on a Google search of the internet. The accounts differ, so there is some ambiguity. John Gibson was married to Koonay "Anne" Shikellamy, daughter of Chief Shikellamy, also known as Swatana. He was an Oneida chief and overseer for the Iroquois confederacy. In his position as chief and overseer, Shikellamy served as a supervisor for the Six Nations, overseeing the Shawnee and Lenape tribes in central Pennsylvania along the Susquehanna River and protecting the southern border of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Koonay was killed in the Yellow Creek Massacre in 1774. John and Koonay had some children at the time of the massacre -- and here's where the story gets a little muddled. One of the children was a baby, still in a cradleboard on Koonay's back. Most versions of the story say that the babe was taken by the Indians and later returned to John Gibson. Reportedly, Nicholas Gibson, who would have been about 9 years old, was taken by the Indians and lived with them for several years, after which he was traded to some white settlers for a barrel of whiskey.

Well, maybe take a grain of salt with all that. It's a very interesting story, anyway, as is most of the Gibson family history. On the FamilySearch website the Gibson lineage is traced all the way back to Adam's daddy (God)! Big grain of salt. But I love it, because it is so typical of the "larger than life" mystique that seems to run through all the Gibson clan (including my great-grandmother Lora, and all her siblings and all her children -- some of whom I have met in person.)

John Gibson's second wife was Anna Ball. She is buried with him in Pennsylvania.