G is for Gibby and Grant

The Gibby line and the Grant line of my family tree are two of the few  lines that have been traced back to countries other than England or the USA.  The Gibby line has researched  back to the 1600's in Pembrokeshire, Wales, and the Grant line back to the 1600's in Edinburgh, Scotland.

William Gibby and Catherine Stevenson Gibby    (source: familysearch.com)

William Gibby is one of my paternal great-great-grandfathers.  William was born in 1835 in Slebeck, Pembrokeshire, Wales.  William and his four brothers and two sisters did not get the chance for much education as his family was quite poor.  He and his brothers were apprenticed out as drapers, which as I understand means that they worked in shops that sold fabrics.

In November of 1854 William and his brother John left Wales to emigrate to the United States.  They sailed from Liverpool, England on the sailing vessel Clara Wheeler, bound for New Orleans.  Measles broke out while they were on board, and 22 of the 442 passengers on board died on the trip.  After arriving in New Orleans they traveled by steamship up the Mississippi River to Kansas where the brothers worked on a farm for two years in order to raise money for their trip farther west.  In the summer of 1856 they crossed the plains by covered wagon, driving ox teams in exchange for their board.  William married Catherine Stevenson in 1857 and they settled in the Salt Lake City area and raised 10 children, with William working as a carpenter and a farmer.   He was best known for winning a $500 prize for raising the most wheat from one acre of ground, yielding 8 bushels and 6 lbs.  He died in 1910 at the age of 75.

Ellen Grant Bird

My great grandmother, Ellen Grant, born August 23, 1862 was the first white child born in Gunnison, Utah.  Very few white people were living in the area at the time.  When she was only a few days old, a big Indian came in to see the white papoose, and seeing her abundance of dark hair, said that she was an Indian Papoose and took her from her bed and ran outdoors laughing.  Ellen's father was an interpreter for the Indians, and they often came to see him for help with their troubles.  The Indian thought it all a big joke, but being new to the country and unused to the Indians,  Ellen's mother wasn't much amused by the joke.  It wasn't much longer that she asked to leave Gunnison to visit her parents in the northern part of the state, and she never returned. Ellen's father later returned to try and sell their home and retrieve their belongs, and was told that several of the men he had worked with had been killed by the Indians while they were gone.  Ellen spent the rest of her 91 years in rural Cache County, Utah.  She married Deloss Perley Bird and they raised 9 children.