Gibbs Home

Soddy

Farmhouse

Schoolhouse

Animals

Gardens

Orchard

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In the nineteenth century Minnesota was a growing western outpost. Fort Snelling, built in 1819, was a lively meeting place for the Dakota, Ojibway, fur traders and the increasing number of pioneer settlers. Saint Paul, once known as “Pig’s Eye” was a rapidly growing town and many people from the crowed eastern cities were looking for a place to call their own. Minnesota became a territory in 1849 and Saint Paul was named the capital. Many pioneers flocked to the new region, the Gibbs were one of these pioneer families.

 Heman Gibbs was born in Jericho, Vermont in 1815. After attending school, Heman moved west to Indiana where he taught school. Later he moved to Illinois to take part in the mining boom of the mid-1800’s.

 Jane Debow was born in Batavia, New York in the late 1820’s. At the age of five she was brought to Minnesota by the Reverend Jedediah Stevens and his family where she was raised in a mission near Cloud Man’s Band of Dakota, near Lake Calhoun in present day Minneapolis.  After a number of failed attempts to convert the Dakota to Christianity the Stevens family, along with Jane, moved south to Wenona and eventually settled in Illinois. Here Jane met Heman Gibbs and they married in 1848. The next year the newlyweds decided to move to the new territory of Minnesota and try their luck on the prairie.

 They arrived in Saint Paul in the spring of the year. Heman’s first task was to buy land for their new home.  The Gibbs met a Mexican War veteran willing to sell his land warrant for a very reasonable price.  Heman bought 160 acres of land for $1.25 per acre. This land was a fertile section of land located northwest of Saint Paul.

 During the summer of 1849, Heman constructed a log and sod cabin and began to farm. After five years of cozy living in the soddy and a booming market garden, Heman built a larger log cabin was built. As the Gibbs family grew to five children, the Gibbs family made much needed additions to the farmhouse in 1867 and 1873.