| Memories of Charlton County - by Gibson and Mays Back to Table of Contents 5. MY FAMILY (P 1) I was the eighth child of Henry Gilbert and Martha
Highsmith Gibson. Papa's parents were John Ellis and Emily Leigh Gibson and Papa's brother was William Owen Gibson. It sounds strange, but it's a fact that my Uncle Owen and Papa were born in the same room, but in different counties! Uncle Owen was born in 1852 in Camden County and Papa was born in 1855 in Charlton County in the same bedroom of their home located west of Coleraine. The reason they were born in different counties was that after Uncle Owen was born and
before Papa was born, the new county of Charlton was organized in 1854, from a part of Camden County which included my parent's residence known then as the Joel Brown home place. My grandmother, Emily Leigh Gibson, died soon after Papa was born and her mother raised Uncle Owen and Papa. My grandfather, John Ellis Gibson, returned to Pembroke, where he had been raised, and found that a former sweetheart had married a Mr. Donaldson, had three sons and was already a widow so
he married her. Her three sons and his two sons were never under the same roof at one time. We tried to arrange this when they were getting old, but it was too hard to get them all together for it was a long distance between Folkston and Pembroke. Grandfather Gibson visited his two young sons, Papa and Uncle Owen, several times, corning from Pembroke on horseback. Once Uncle Owen rode back with him on a horse all the way to Pembroke. John Ellis Gibson was killed in 1862 in
the War for Southern Independence when Papa and Uncle Owen were still children. Papa married my mother, Martha Highsmith, and their children were Horace, John, Charlie, Bessie, Harry, Lillie, Elvie, Madison and Mattie. My mother died a few days after Mattie was born. Papa later married Elizabeth Lee and their children were Ena, Anna and Henry. In 1921, I married Ruth Dean, daughter of Rev. and Mrs. E. F. Dean, and we had five children. Our first child, a
daughter, died when only one day old and the other children were Fleming, Horace, Kenneth and Martha Mae. |
