William Hasell Gibbes was born on March 16, 1754, in Charleston, South Carolina. He was the son of William and Elizabeth (Hasell) Gibbes.
His grandfather, Robert Gibbes, was governor of the province from 1710 to 1712 and at one time its chief justice.
His father, William Gibbes, was one of a secret committee of five members of the Council of Safety, appointed in 1775 by Charles Pinckney, to gather munitions against the impending Revolution.
The son, having earlier read law under John Rutledge, was in England studying in the Inner Temple in 1774.
When the news of the “Intolerable Acts” was received, a group of thirty Americans living in England protested in a petition to the House of Commons, and in a memorial direct to the King. Gibbes was among the sixteen South Carolinians who signed the document.
When the Revolution broke out, he was refused a passport, but escaped to the Bermudas. Thence he made his way to Philadelphia and then to South Carolina, where he became a captain-lieutenant of the Ancient Artillery.
He served in the sieges of Charleston and Savannah. When Charleston surrendered, its citizens were put on parole and confined to the limits of the city.
In August 1780, Cornwallis ordered the arrest, and transportation to St. Augustine, of a group of the leading citizens. No particular complaint was lodged against them, but in spite of that fact, they were sequestered in St. Augustine until the close of the war.
Gibbes was in this group, which also included Christopher Gadsden. At some time before 1783, Gibbes was admitted to the bar, and was in that year elected master- in-equity, a position which he held until 1823. His services in the office have been described as “important and valuable”.
In 1811, he was impeached by the legislature on charges growing out of the sale of thirty-five slaves, through the master’s court. Gibbes was represented by William Drayton and Keating Simons. The prosecuting attorney was Charles Pinckney.
Gibbes was acquitted by a large majority on every charge. From 1825 until his death in 1834, he apparently engaged in the private practise of law.
Gibbes was buried in St. Philip’s churchyard in Charleston.
An account book, showing the record of the administration of his estate, indicates that Gibbes was a man of large means, and his personal letters show him to have been a man of deep piety and of strong family affections.
Gibbes was twice married: first, on August 29, 1772, to Elizabeth Allston, by whom he had ten children; and second, on January 21, 1808, to Mary Philp Wilson, who had four children.
Five children survived him, of whom Robert W. Gibbes, physician and publisher, his eldest child by his second wife, was the best known.
8 January 1722 - 2 February 1789
14 January 1725 - 3 June 1762
19 January 1758 - 23 March 1832
22 July 1756 - 20 June 1838
4 July 1772 - 21 April 1844
1788 - 14 May 1853
6 October 1799 - 23 June 1831
30 January 1795 - 10 July 1816
8 July 1809 - 15 October 1866
