“Willard Gibbs free”?

One ciphered line in the diary of Thomas Newell was still mysterious to me, even after being transcribed and published by the Massachusetts Historical Society.

This entry is dated 30 Sept 1773, and it reads:

Willard Gibbs free

I doublechecked those words with the original pages and the cipher, and they’re accurate. (The transcriber did regularize Newell’s spelling, capitalization, and punctuation, deeming him “illiterate.”)

Figuring out what that meant was hampered by the visibility of Josiah Willard Gibbs, the great engineer at Yale, and his father, a Yale professor of theology. But several other members of the extended family also had that name.

Pushing back far enough, we find the first Josiah Willard Gibbs (1752–1822), not a direct ancestor of those two famous men but an uncle.

The Gibbs Family Papers are at the Clements Library, and its finding aid has a lot to say about that man’s father, Henry Gibbs (1709–1759, shown above courtesy of Geni).

Son of a minister, Henry went to Harvard College and “came into a considerable inheritance from both sides of the family.” He was the college librarian from 1730 to 1734, then settled in Salem as a merchant. His first wife died young, and he then married Katharine Willard (1724–1769), daughter of the province secretary, Josiah Willard.

This marriage further cemented the prominent place of the Gibbs in Salem society but brought comparatively little lucre, and only the fortunate bequest of £500 from a friend, William Lynde, helped the Gibbs maintain their lifestyle and social obligations. A theological liberal and political supporter of the power of the crown and broad colonial obligations, Gibbs held several important local and provincial offices during the next several years, including justice of the peace (appt. 1753), judge, delegate in the House of Representatives (three terms, beginning in 1753), and Clerk of the House (1755-1759). In February, 1759, at what should have been the peak of his career, he contracted measles, leaving five children and an insolvent estate with a meager 10s allotted to each child.

Evidently Katherine Gibbs moved her family back to Boston, where she died on 31 May 1769. At that point her son Josiah Willard Gibbs was sixteen, not yet of legal age. He had a prestigious name and probably little else.

On 14 July, merchant and selectman Timothy Newell became Josiah’s guardian. (The probate judge overseeing this arrangement was Thomas Hutchinson. Newell’s sureties were Richard Clarke and John Amory. The witness to this action was William Cooper. Just showing what a tight little community colonial Boston was.)

It looks like Josiah Willard Gibbs became part of Timothy Newell’s household, probably learning business alongside that merchant’s nephew Thomas (who was three years older). Young Gibbs turned twenty-one on 30 Sept 1773—the day of Thomas Newell’s mysterious line.

Thus, “Willard Gibbs free” meant that Josiah Willard Gibbs had come of age. He could manage his own property and no longer answered to Timothy Newell. As to whether that was cause for celebration or mere acknowledgement, the diary didn’t say.

According to the Memoir of the Gibbs Family of Warwickshire, England, and United States of America (1879), compiled by (naturally) Josiah Willard Gibbs, this Willard Gibbs went on to marry Elizabeth Warner in 1779; she was just about to turn sixteen.

These Gibbses had ten or eleven children between 1780 and 1801. Their son George was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1793, and the family settled in Philadelphia. Josiah died in that city in 1822, Elizabeth in 1842. Their son Josiah Willard Gibbs was a merchant there. His son Josiah Willard Gibbs went out to Sacramento in the Gold Rush and died in 1850.

“The publick Damage sustain’d by this sad Disaster”

The 10 Dec 1747 Boston News-Letter reported:

Yesterday Morning between 6 & 7 o’ Clock were were exceedingly surprized by a most terrible Fire which broke out at the Court-House in this Town, whereby that spacious and beautiful Building, except the bare outward Walls, was entirely destroyed:

This was the building now known as the Old State House. It went up in 1713 to house the Boston town government, the Massachusetts General Court, and regular court sessions.

With the building of Faneuil Hall in 1742, the town meetings and Boston selectmen had moved out. Hence people were calling the older building the “Court-House,” though many people went back to calling it the “Town House” until the Revolution.

In the 1723 view of Boston shown above and available through Digital Commonwealth, the Town House is the turret marked “6.” But now that cupola was gone.

John Draper’s newspaper continued:

As the Fire began in the middle or second Story, the Records, Books, Papers, Furniture, Pictures of the Kings and Queens, &c. which where in the Council Chamber, the Chamber of the House of Representatives, and the Apartments thereof in that Story, were consumed; as were also the Books and Papers in the Offices of the upper Story: Those in the Offices below were mostly saved.

In the Cellars, which were hired by several Persons, a great Quantity of Wines & other Liquors were lost.

The publick Damage sustain’d by this sad Disaster is inexpressibly great; and the Loss to some particular Persons, ’tis said will amount to several Thousand Pounds——

The Vehemence of the Flames occasion’s such a great Heat as to set the Roofs of some of the opposite Houses on Fire, notwithstanding they had been covered with Snow, and it was extinguished with much Difficulty.——

How the Fire was occasion’d, whether by Defect in the Chimney or Hearth as some think, is uncertain.

Then came an official announcement in larger italicized type:

THESE are to desire and direct all Persons whatsoever that may have in their Hands any Books, Papers or Parchments that relate to the Transactions of the General Assembly of this Province, or the Governour and Council, or that belong to the Secretary’s Office, that may have been saved out of the Court-House in Boston, in the Fire that consumed the said House this Morning, that they forthwith send the same to my House, or give me an Account thereof.

Boston, December 9. 1747.
J[osiah]. Willard, Secy.

Another item in that issue said:

Drop’d Yesterday Morning, at the Time of the Fire, in King Street, a Pair of Gold Sleeve Buttons: Any Person that has taken them up and will bring them to the Printer hereof shall be well satisfyed for their Trouble.

The Massachusetts General Court was in session that day, with representatives from all over the province, including Maine. Britain was then at war with France, Spain, and a bunch of smaller countries. The town had been roiled by three days of anti-impressment riots just the month before, as I happened to discuss recently. So this was not a good time for the legislative seat to burn down.

TOMORROW: The General Court responds.