Obit: Gibson, Joseph #2 (1848 - 1909)

Contact: Stan      

Email: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Gibson, Redmond, Sperbeck, Kennedy

----Source: Neillsville Times (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) 3/251909

Gibson, Joseph #2 (30 APR 1848 - 19 MAR 1909)

Last Friday night Joseph Gibson, one of Clark County’s (Wisconsin)  earliest settlers, died at his home near Longwood.  The remains were taken to Medford, where Mr. Gibson’s son resides, for burial.  Rev. Norton conducted a brief ceremony at the home at Longwood before the body was taken to Medford.

Joseph Gibson was born in Kingsey, Quebec, Canada, April 30, 1848, son of Alexander and Margaret Gibson.  When the subject of this sketch was but ten years old he left his home in Canada and came to this country.  He arrived in La Crosse and for four years lived with a family and during that time received fifty cents, the only money he had ever received in this country.  He then secured work in a saw mill but in a very short time began work in the woods in winter and driving logs in the summer.  His ability and sterling qualities were soon recognized, for at the age of nineteen he was foreman in camp for Bright and Withee.

In 1871 he came to Clark County and began for himself when this was a wilderness.  He secured a large tract of land and in a few years had one of the most beautiful homes in Clark county.  He was very successful as a logger for many years in Wisconsin and for the last five years in Minnesota, where he had just finished a large contract.  Mr. Gibson was modest and unassuming but the deeds of kindness and the substantial aid given to the numberless applicants, none but the Recording Angel knows.  When the Greenwood State Bank was organized in 1891 he was chosen president and held the position until his logging operations called him so far away that he could not attend to it.  He also was the first president of the First National Bank of Medford.

When the war of the Rebellion broke out, although but a boy of fifteen, he enlisted and was in the siege of Savannah and with Sherman in his march to the sea.

Mr. Gibson died of apoplexy brought on, no doubt, from over work in unloading and bringing to the farm and stabling a carload of horses he had brought to pasture through the summer.  He made the remark to a friend Friday morning that he had "felt fine all winter" and was seemingly well at 10 o’clock p.m. when the man who assisted him in his day’s work left him at his own door and when at 7:00 a.m. he was called for breakfast he was found dead in his bed.

Only July 8^th, 1869, Mr. Gibson was united in marriage at La Crosse to Miss Matilda Catherine Sperbeck.  The widow and two children survive him, Lee W. of Medford and Blanche E. , wife of C. F. Kennedy of Grand Rapids, Minn.  The wife and daughter were both sick and under the care of a nurse at the time, which makes it doubly sad.  Deceased also leaves two brothers and three sisters and a host of friends to mourn his loss.