CHAPTER VIII.

JOHN BANNISTER GIBSON, L.L.D.

BORN, NOV., 1780-APPOINTED, JUNE, 1816-DIED, MAY, 1853.

JOHN BANNISTER GIBSON was born on the eighth day of November, in the year 1780; and on the morning of the third of May, 1853, as the State House clock, which, for more than thirty-five years, had summoned him to his judicial labors, struck two, he breathed his last, in the seventy-third year of his age, full of years and full of honors; and what is better, full of faith in his Redeemer. He died in the embraces of an affectionate and beloved family, to whom he bequeathed, if no other fortune, the rich legacy of an enduring Fame. He was the son of Colonel George Gibson, a gallant soldier of the Revolution, who was killed at St. Clair's defeat by the Indians in 1799.

In a letter written by Judge Gibson, a short time

before his death, in answer to an inquiry in regard to his maternal ancestry, he furnished all the details upon that subject which are necessary; and we therefore adopt them as more reliable than those which might be derived from any other source.

"My mother," says he, "was Ann, the daughter of Francis West, descended from an Irish branch of the Delaware family, possibly before it was ennobled. The peerage is English, and, I believe, an existing one. The family name is West. Her mother was a Wynne. Owen, the head of the family, is, or was, the first commoner in Ireland. Through the Wynnes, we are connected with the Coles, Earls of Enniskillen. Another connexion, not perhaps so respectable, was the famous Colonel Barre, the intimate associate of Wilkes. My mother was born at Clover Hill, near Sligo, in 1746, and came to this country in 1754 or 1755. She died in February, 1809. I believe her father had been a Trinity College boy, for he spoke Latin, after the fashion of the day. My mother, who was certainly a well educated woman, directed my course of reading, and put such books into my hands as were proper for me. My father's collection of from one to two hundred volumes (among them Burke's Annual Register,) I read so often, that I could almost repeat pages of them yet. My poor mother struggled with poverty during the nineteen years she lived after my father's death; and, having borne up till she saw me admitted to the bar, died. She certainly was a clever woman, but the little talent of the family came from my father's side. I should say genius, for he had no business talents whatever. He was celebrated as a humorist, and was a wit. Though without any single positive vice, he never could advance his fortune, except in the army, for which he was peculiarly fitted."

Having shed as much ancestral, direct and collateral light upon our subject as the occasion requires, we return now to the topic with which we set out.

The opportunities for education during his youth were exceedingly limited. With the preliminary aid of his mother, however, and the instruction afforded afterwards at a school house or shanty, about a mile from his home, on the banks of Sherman's creek, he acquired a knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic. At this school he remained three years, at the charge of twenty shillings a year, and it is not improbable that his general improvement might be fairly graduated by its expense. After leaving the school, for some years his habits became sedentary, and the advantage of self-instruction, and his devotion to books, so far advanced his knowledge as to qualify him, in the year 1797, at the age of eighteen, to enter the grammar school attached to Dickinson college. Here he remained two years, and made not merely rapid, but extraordinary, progress, astonishing not only his rivals, but his professors. He was of course rapidly promoted, and finally entered the junior class of the college in 1800, in the twentieth year of his age.

He was a cotemporary and rival of William Wilkins, of Pittsburg, afterwards so distinguished in the annals of this State and country, and George Bullit, a gentleman of Virginia, a young man of the first talents and attainments. It is enough to say, that, with such com

petitors, even with the disadvantage of early imperfect culture, he successfully, if not triumphantly, maintained his post. He passed with great distinction through the studies of the senior class, and in the early part of 1801, without matriculating, he commenced the study of the law under his celebrated kinsman, the late Judge Duncan, and was admitted to practice after the usual course of reading, in the month of March, 1803. During his connexion with Dickinson college, (we mention this as an illustration of his attachment through life to medical science,) he was in the habit of frequenting the office of one of the oldest practitioners of medicine of that period and place, Dr. M'Coskrey, the father of the present Bishop M'Coskrey. Here, as might be supposed, he acquired a taste for the study of physic, which he never lost-poring, as he did, for days at a time, over the volumes contained in an extensive, and systematic scientific library.

The knowledge here derived, in after time, as we know, was not unfrequently put into practical application upon many occasions, during his official sojourn in various parts of the State. We have no time to exhibit in detail the numerous occurrences of this kind; but almost the very last opinion he delivered, furnishes a brief but sufficient instance of his attainments. We refer to the case of Smith against Cramer, pronounced but a little month before his decease. It was a question, as to the admission of evidence, to show the

insanity of ancestors, for the purpose of corroborating other testimony, tending to establish the insanity of a testator.*

"I admit the deposition without hesitation, notwithstanding the dicta of Mr. Shelford, (Treat. on Lunacy, 59,) and Mr. Chitty, (Med. Jurisp. 355,) that 'it is an established rule of law not to admit proof of insanity in other members of the family in civil or criminal cases.' Established! When, where, and by whom? Certainly not by the House of Lords in McAdam v. Walker, 1 Dow's Par. Ca. 148, the only case cited for it, for the question there was avowedly dodged. That High Court would not shock common sense by affirming the order of the Scotch Court of Session; nor would it gratuitously reverse it, when the decision could be safely put on another ground. The authority of a judgment appealed from, and left in dubio, cannot be very great. Sir Samuel Romilly's argument against the evidence, was rested on the fecundity and interminableness of collateral issues; and Mr. Chitty seems to have had a glimpse of the same idea, when he said the course is to confine the evidence to the mental state of the party. But every new fact, though it open a new field of inquiry, is not collateral. It may bear directly on the fact in contest; and, where it does so, it is not in the power of the Court to shut it out. A collateral issue is such as would be raised by allowing a party to put a question to a witness on cross-examination, in regard to a fact palpably unconnected with the cause, in order to afford an opportunity to discredit him by contradicting him; but does not proof of hereditary madness bear directly on the condition of the mind, which is the subject of investigation? What if the point had been ruled by the Chancellor and law judges in the House of Lords? Profoundly learned in the

* 1 American Law Journal, page 353. February, 1853.