SOUTH CAROLINA, 1790-1810

The Gibbes family has been in South Carolina since the Proprietary Era, and William Hasell Gibbes was a native of Charleston, South Carolina. In keeping with the tradition of his great grandfather, Robert, who was chief justice of South Carolina in 1708, William became an attorney. In addition, like his father, who was one of five men on the council of safety in Charleston at the beginning of the Revolution, William Hasell took part in the Revolutionary effort. He was among those who petitioned the King against the series of acts of parliament, which were the immediate cause of the Revolution, and he served as a Captain-Lieutenant during the Revolution. His son, Dr. Robert W. Gibbes (1809-1866) was also an important figure in South Carolina's community, playing the roles of newspaper editor, entrepreneur, historian and scientist. In addition, he served as Surgeon General of South Carolina until 1861 and published his own Documentary History of the American Revolution in South Carolina after working to assemble a collection of Revolutionary War manuscripts. His son James Guignard Gibbes was a Colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

This sideboard compares closely to a group of South Carolina examples. Like their New York counterparts, they share inlay motifs of diamonds on the legs, quarter-rounds in the corners of the doors and drawer fronts, and bookend inlay on the tops of the legs just below the top. Closely related examples include Rauschenberg and Bivins, Jr., Charleston Furniture 1680-1820 (Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 2003), NT-13 and NT-14 (vol. II, pp. 635-636), and Hurst and Prown, Southern Furniture 1680-1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection, fig. 156.2 (p. 516).