John Gibb (businessman)

Gibb was born on March 14, 1829 in Forfarshire, Scotland.[1] He left his father's farm at the age of 14 to apprentice for four years in a draper’s shop at Montrose, Angus. Later, he went to London and was in the largest wholesale house in that city. In 1850, he became acquainted with a member of the firm of E. S. Jaffray & Company, who induced him to come to New York, where became a buyer of embroideries and white goods.[2]

In 1865, he formed the firm of Mills & Gibb with Philo L. Mills, with whom he remained partners for over forty years. When the company incorporated in 1903, Gibb became president, while Mills, vice-president, moved to England to take charge of the company's foreign business. Gibb was a director of the Brooklyn Trust Company, a member of the advisory council of the Thrift Savings, Loan & Building Fund, the Brooklyn Club, Long Island Historical Society, Penatquit-Corinthian Yacht, Merchants‘ Central, Hamilton and Olympic Clubs, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Museum of Natural History. He was for a term president of the Brooklyn Park Commission and was a trustee for YMCA.[2]

In 1852, he married Mrs. Harriet Balston (died in 1878). Seven years later, he married Sarah D. Mackay.[1] He died in 1905 at his country residence, "Afterglow" in Islip, Long Island.[3] Five sons survived him, I. Richmond, Arthur, Walter, Elmer and Louis and four daughters, all married.[2]

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Black's "Dry Goods Guide" (1905)