In 1818, Jacob Gibson removed from Grainger County,
Tennessee to Walker County, Alabama. He and his several
sons patented land about a mile below Cordova on the western
bank of the Mulberry River at Bough Bend, just above
present-day Dovertown.
In 1833 he submitted the first of his two affidavits in
support of a claim for the benefit of a pension first
enacted by Congress in the year 1820. In 1836 he submitted
the second affidavit and was approved to receive a pension
that same year.
Jacob GIBSON died sometime between the date of his
second/last affidavit and the 1840 Federal Census. He died
at home in Walker County. The year of his death is inexact,
but I estimate it to have been in the year 1838-9, due to
other facts.
-- Jacob Gibson was born in 1762 in Frederick County,
Virginia
-- was living in Guilford County, North Carolina at the
outbreak of the Revolution
-- was 16 1/2 when, due to a law enacted by the North
Carolina Legislature, he was drafted into the NC Line and
marched to the Siege of Charlestown, SC where he was taken
prisoner by the British and was impressed into service on a
British Man-of-War which impressment he refused to do.
-- was taken, with three others, to the Island of Jamaica
and imprisoned in the notorious Bath Prison at Kingston,
where the other three died.
-- was released at Kingston and made his way to a port at
the north end of the island where he encountered an American
vessel captained by a Captain Joseph Smith of Middletown
Connecticut who gave him food, clothes and passage to his
homeport (Middletown).
-- from Middletown, Connecticut, Jacob Gibson began the
long trek south, heading to his "native" county (Frederick
Co, VA).
-- due to lack of funds, he was forced to stop in
Pennsylvania and work for several months, before continuing
to Frederick County, Virginia
-- he remained in Frederick County three years (where in
1787 he married Sarah Kemp age 15)
-- he (they) removed to Greene County, Tennessee (that
part of northeastern Tennessee originally claimed and
governed by North Carolina), but then removed to Grainger
Co., Tennessee, due to Indian hostilities, where they
remained 11 years
-- he then removed to Guilford Co., Tennessee where he
remained 16 years
-- he then removed to Walker Co., Alabama where, at the
time of the writing the first affidavit, he had been living
for more than 15 years.
--he died and was buried in Walker County, Alabama
(Contributed by
Neil Lamont - 2005)