John Bannister Gibson
American judge (1780–1853)
John Bannister Gibson (November 8, 1780 – May 3, 1853) was a Pennsylvania jurist. He served on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court from 1816 to his death in 1853, and was chief justice on the court for 24 years. "During his highly influential career, he wrote more than twelve hundred opinions and was known for maintaining a generally restrictive view of judicial authority, [and] aiding measures for internal improvements and public works"[.] With some reluctance, Gibson also strictly followed precedent and legal text to deny the franchise to Pennsylvania’s free persons of African descent (Hobbs v. Fogg, 6 Watts 553 (Pa. 1837)).
Early life
Born in what is now Perry County, Pennsylvania (in 1780 it was part of Cumberland County), Gibson was named for John Banister, a Virginia hero of the American Revolution. Gibson's father, George Gibson, also fought in the war and remained in service after its end. George Gibson was killed at St. Clair's defeat in an expedition to the Great Black Swamp in northwest Ohio during the Northwest Indian Wars, when his son John was eleven years old.
In 1795 or 1796, Gibson was sent to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he remained about four years.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Bannister Gibson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.