Gibson, Tobias

Gibson, Tobias a Methodist Episcopal ministar, was born in Liberty County, South Carolina, November 10, 1771, entered the itinerant ministry in 1792, and died at Natchez, Mississippi, April 5, 1804. He traveled and preached in the most important appointments of the Carolinas until the year 1800, and then went to Natchez as a missionary. The whole Louisiana purchase emas then almost a wilderness. After penetrating the forest fox six hundred miles to the Cumberland River, Mr. Gibson took a canoe, and alone navigated that streams to the Ohio, and thence down the Mississippi in a boat. He made four trips through the wilderness to the Cumberland while missionary at Natchez, and laid the foundations of Methodism in that vast and now so important region. His fellow-laborers in Carolina testify that "he did for many years preach, profess, possess, and practice Christian perfection; and that those who were acquainted with him must be impressed with his depth of piety;" and "that infidelity itself would stagger before the life of so holy, loving, and devote a man of God." — Minutes of Conferences, 1:125.