THE MINNESOTA 



HORTICULTURIST. 



VOL. 29. FEBRUARY, 1901. No. 2. 



^i 



ograpl^y. 



EX-SECY OLIVER GIBBS, 



PRESCOTT, WIS. 



Oliver Gibbs, whose portrait appears as frontispiece in this 

 number of the Horticulturist, was born in Bethel, Vermont, Novem- 

 ber 2^, 1832, making him now in his 69th year. His father was born 

 in Plymouth county, Massachusetts ; his grandfather, Lemuel Gibbs, 

 and his grandmother on that side of the house, born Hannah Putnam, 

 were also Massachusetts people, although she was of the Connecticut 

 Putnam stock, in the same family tree with Gen. Israel Putnam, of 

 Revolutionary fame. His mother, born Zilpha Thomas, died when 

 he was nine years old. She, as well as his father's people, had a long 

 lived ancestry, but was herself a victim of the ignorance of the day 

 concerning sanitary conditions and medical practice. 



In 1833 '^is father and family removed to Pittsfield. Vermont, 

 where Oliver was brought up, working on the farm and attending 

 district and select school. 



In 1850 and 1851 he taught in neighboring district schools; 

 working as a printer in 1852 in the Herald ofifice and in Geo. A. 

 Tuttle's job office in Rutland. 



In 1853 he tramped westward, setting type on the Troy Whig, 

 Syracuse Journal and Chicago Democrat. In February, 1854, he 

 tramped again, this time south, making short stops in Indianapolis, 

 Louisville, Memphis, Vicksburg and Jackson, and getting a steady 

 situation in the ofifice of the Brandon Republican, Rankin county, 

 Mississippi. Getting homesick for the north, he came back to Chica- 

 go, in July of that year, and till September, 1855, had employment as 



