William Gibbons was a physician. He also was the first president of the State Temperance Society and of the Delaware Academy of Natural Sciences.
Background
William Gibbons was born during a visit of his parents to Philadelphia. He was the youngest of the thirteen children of James and Eleanor (Peters) Gibbons, and the fourth in descent from John Gibbons, who emigrated under William Penn’s auspices in 1681 from Warminster in Wiltshire and acquired a tract of land in what later became Chester County, Pennsylvania.
His father lived as a farmer, surveyor, conveyancer, and teacher at West- town, Chester County, and was famous for his extensive knowledge of ancient and modern languages.
Education
Gibbons showed great solicitude for the education of his son, who, after studying medicine privately, was sent to the University of Pennsylvania, where he was much influenced by Benjamin Rush, formed an enduring friendship with William Darlington, and received the degree of M. D. in 1805.
Career
Gibbons's Inaugural Essay on Hypochondriasis (1805) he dedicated to his former teachers, Dr. Jacob Ehrenzeller of West Chester and Dr. John Vaughn of Wilmington. In subject and in style the essay reflects the young doctor’s interest in literature, although it makes no reference to Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.
For the remaining thirty-eight years of his life, he lived in Wilmington, rising to eminence in his profession and exerting a beneficent influence over the cultural life of the region.
In 1822, he published Truth Advocated in Letters Addressed to the Presbyterians, an answer to the attacks of a local clergyman, E. W. Gilbert, whose zeal outran his manners.
When Gilbert fell desperately sick Gibbons was called in as a last resort and saved his opponent’s life. Some years later, when Gibbons published an Exposition of Modern Scepticism (1829) to counteract the propaganda of Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright D’Arusmont, Gilbert, now the doctor’s admiring friend, read the pamphlet to his congregation.
In 1824, he began the publication of a religious paper, the Berean, which he continued through four volumes. To Israel Daniel Rupp’s Original History of the Denominations (1844), he contributed the chapter on the Hicksite Friends.
Achievements
William Gibbons has been listed as a noteworthy physician, editor by Marquis Who's Who.
Religion
Like his father, Gibbons was a devout Quaker.
Views
Gibbons was much interested in the emancipation and education of the African-Americans.
Personality
Though noted for the cheerfulness and even sprightliness of his conversation, Gibbons was opposed to novel-reading and to music in connection with religious services.
Thirteen of his fourteen children survived him. His widow founded the Wilmington Home for Aged Women. Two sons, Henry and William Peters, attained distinction as physicians and botanists in California; Henry was also the organizer of the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Interests
Sharing his father’s aptitude for languages, Gibbons learned to read Latin, Greek, Plebrew, French, and German. He gave much attention to horticulture, and made his orchard and garden a refuge for birds.
Like his second son, James Sloan Gibbons, he was an amateur meteorologist.
Connections
On May 14, 1806, Gibbons married Rebecca, youngest daughter of David Donaldson of Wilmington, Delaware.
