California Biographies, San Joaquin Valley

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


WILLIAM M. GIBSON. A mile and a half northwest of Conejo, Fresno county, is located the 
ranch which belongs to William M. Gibson, and where he is engaged in general farming and 
stock-raising. He has a dairy of thirty-five cows, eight acres of vineyard, and is contemplating 
planting to orchard and vineyard a tract of one hundred acres adjoining the one hundred and 
sixty which forms the home place. He is a native of Jefferson county, Ky., where he was born 
August 8, 1838. His father, William M. Gibson, Sr., was a native of Bardstown, Ky., and was the 
son of another William M., who was born in Albemarle county, Va., and in manhood emigrated 
to Kentucky, where he became a large slave-owner and where his death eventually occurred. 
William M. Gibson, Sr., was a hatter by trade and also engaged as 2 teacher in the public 
schools, teaching in Jefferson county, Ky., and Clark county, Ind., for several years. He died at 
Gibson Station, Ind., aged eighty-six years. He was reared a Catholic. His wife, formerly Mary L. 
Hikes, was born and reared in Jefferson county, Ky., and died in Indiana. They were the parents 
of five sons and six daughters, of whom William M. was the eldest. 

Educated in the public schools and in Oberlin College, Ohio, William M. Gibson engaged in 
farming in .young manhood, in 1862 enlisting in the Fourth Indiana Cavalry, Company D, in 
which he was elected sergeant and served for three years, he participated in many 
engagements, among them Perryville, Stone River, etc. ; spent two weeks in Libby prison ; was 
paroled with Gilroy's men, and was honorably discharged in July, 1865, in Edgefield, Tenn. He 
then engaged in farming in Clark county, Ind., where he remained until 1870, in which year he 
located in Sedalia, Mo. Ten years later he sold out and came to California, purchasing his 
present property of one hundred and sixty acres, where he combined the interests of farming 
with general teaming into the mountains. With nothing in the way of improvements Mr. Gibson 
has brought his property to rank with the best ranches in this section, adding various 
improvements in the way of buildings and fences, and bringing it up to a high state of 
cultivation. He now owns two hundred and sixty acres, one hundred of which he intends 
planting to orchard and vineyard at no distant date, while he also rents land for farming 
purposes. 

In Clark county, Ind., Mr. Gibson was united in marriage with Eliza J. Bennett, a native of 
Lexington, Ky., and they have one child, Ella, the wife of Rolla Prather, who farms the ranch 
with his father-in-law. Politically Mr. Gibson is a stanch Republican and is a prominent member 
of the Grand Army of the Republic, Fresno Post.