William Gibbes (1722-1789) owned extensive properties in several parishes in Colleton County, and was a ship owner and merchant. He was one of three developers who filled in the tip of land on the Charleston peninsula before the Revolution, where he built a large Georgian home. Elected to the Commons House in 1772 and 1774, he later became a member of the South Carolina Provincial Congress, and was appointed as Justice of the Peace in 1776 after the adoption of the Revolutionary Constitution. This portrait, by the miniaturist Henry Benbridge, was probably painted before the war.
Courtesy of the Gibbes Museum of Art/Carolina Art Association.
