"Portrait and Biographical Record of Hunterdon and Warren counties, New Jersey"
Chapman Publishing Company, New York and Chicago, 1898
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SILAS GIBBS. For nearly a quarter of a
century this representative citizen of Belvidere, Warren County, has been employed by
the United States Gas Improvement Company,
of Philadelphia, the largest concern of the kind in
this country. He has erected gas plants in all parts
of the United States, and thoroughly understands
every detail of the business. The great corporation with which he has been so long connected
was organized in the year 1882 by his brother,
W. W. Gibbs, whose career has been truly remarkable. He started out to make his own way
in the world a poor boy, literally empty-handed,
and steadily worked his way upward until now,
in middle life, he is a millionare, with vast business interests and investments in various parts of
the land. Among others, he is president of the
Marsden Company, of Philadelphia, and he it
was who took and filled the contract for the building of the fine bridge over the Hudson River at
Poughkeepsie.
Silas Gibbs, born in Hope, Warren County,
July 9, 1849, is one of the seven children of Levi
B. and Ellen (Vannatta) Gibbs. The father,
now in his eightieth year, has always been a
strong Republican since the party was organized,
and served as the postmaster of Hackettstown,
N. J., under the administration of President
Harrison. He was born near Hope and pursued
the business of carriage making when in his
active years. The Gibbs family is of German
origin. Our subject had an uncle, the late Jacob
Vannatta, who was a noted lawyer of Morristown, N. J. He is also first cousin to ex-Governor
Werts. Mrs. Ellen V. Gibbs departed this life
in 1895, leaving the following-named children:
W. W., previously alluded to; Martha, wife of
L. I. Cook, of Hackettstown; Silas; Mary, wife of
Hugh McDonald; Whitfield, a resident of Deckertown, N. J.; and Elizabeth V., Mrs. Augustus G.
Winter, of Philadelphia.
Up to the time that he was fifteen years old,
Silas Gibbs was a student in the public schools of
Hope, after which he commenced learning the
trade of his father, that of carriage making. He
continued to work at that calling for a period extending over ten years, and then accepted an
opening in the United States Gas Improvement
Company, with which he has since been connected.
He is a practical constructing engineer, and superintending the construction of the plant. In
his political convictions he is a Republican, and
religiously is a Methodist in belief.
September 8, 1875, Mr. Gibbs was united in
marriage with Josephine Decker, with whom he
had grown up in the old home neighborhood.
Her father was Isaac J. Decker, and two of her
brothers were ministers of the Gospel. The
eldest of them, I. Dayton, was a graduate of
Yale and subsequently studied in Germany. The
other, William, is a Presbyterian minister in
Lewiston, Pa. Mr. and Mrs. Gibbs have one
child, Raymond S.
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