William D. Gibbons

William Gibbons (1825 – June 28, 1886), was a formerly enslaved servant, who became a highly successful Baptist minister in Charlottesville and Washington, D.C. He was married to Isabella Gibbons.

Under slavery William Gibbons was born into slavery in Albemarle County, Virginia. His parents and first owners are unknown. In the 1840s, he was sold to Henry Howard, M.D., professor of anatomy and surgery at the University of Virginia, and he was then hired out to William McGuffey, who had married one of Howard's daughters. He served as butler.

"He was a general favorite with all classes, and no one had more friends than he."

First Baptist Church of Charlottesville Gibbons was ordained a minister of the gospel in 1866; he was called a "lay minister" or "licentiate", In 1867 he accepted a call to the pulpit at Charlottesville's first Black church, the First Baptist Church of Charlottesville. As of early 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation freed all the enslaved in Confederate territory, Black worshippers did not want any longer to be required to sit in the balcony of the First Baptist Church and to be outvoted routinely on issues of importance to them; they also felt that the minister discriminated against free blacks. The Church split into Black and White congregations with the same name in the same building, although at first the Black church was required under Virginia law to have a White minister and white trustees, so the same minister led both congregations. Gibbons was the church's first Black minister, The Delevan Hotel building, housing both Isabella's school and William's church, was condemned and torn down in 1876 and a replacement was not ready until 1884.

The entire board of the church accompanied his remains to Charlottesville, where he was buried in Oakwood Cemetery. After her death in 1890, Isabella's remains were also taken from Washington to Charlotteville, and interred there.

Legacy In 2015, the University of Virginia named its new residence hall Gibbons House, in honor of Isabella and William. In the public area are photos of them, interpretive panels on the walls, and a plaque about them.