James Gibson

James Gibson was an English ship-captain who became a prominent merchant in Jamaica and in the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

Born in 1700 in London of unknown parents, Gibson initially served in the Royal Regiment of Foot Guards in the British Army and was sent to Barbados. While serving there, he met a widowed Thomazine Duesbury Barton, whom he married in 1730 and moved to Boston, Massachusetts before 1735.

Gibson soon emerged as a prosperous merchant and planter. He owned a plantation on Jamaica, and land in present day Maine, as well as a mansion in the neighborhood of Beacon Hill, Boston. He was also a shareholder in Long Wharf, the busiest port in Colonial America.

During King George's War (1744–1748) between France and England, the fortress of Louisburg served as a base of attacks against English colonial interests. Since Gibson’s shipping interests in the Atlantic and his property in Maine were damaged, he used his personal wealth to provide necessary funds for the siege and capture of the fortress. He wrote an account which was published in London in 1745 under the name “A Journal of the Late Siege by the Troops from North America against the French at Cape Breton, the City of Louisburg and the Territories Thereunto Belonging: Surrendered to the English on 17 June 1745 After a Siege of Forty-Eight Days”.

As his incomes from the Jamaican plantation declined due to the mismanagement of his overseer he sailed to Jamaica to confront him. After dinner at his home, he died three hours later in great agony.