George Gibbs

Courtesy of Jay Miller

George Gibbs (1815–1873) was from a prominent Northeast family and spent eleven years in the Northwest (1849–1861). With a law degree from Harvard, he worked in the customs office at Astoria, Oregon, then joined the California Gold Rush. He served on treaty commissions in Oregon, California, and Washington, as well as the Canadian boundary survey. After he returned East, he oversaw the indemnity payment to Hudson’s Bay Company for Fort Nisqually. He lived in Washington, D.C., New York City, and New Haven, marrying his cousin and intending to write up the extensive materials on native languages and ethnography he had assembled during fieldwork in the West and study in the Smithsonian archives.

For more information, see Jay Miller's George Gibbs Northwest Array (2015).