Nicholas Gibbs

Johann Nickel Gibs reached Philadelphia on the ship Phoenix in 1751 and served about three years in the French and Indian War with a Northampton County company. He settled in Orange County, North Carolina, married, and collected taxes before selling up in 1791 and moving to East Tennessee with two other German-descended families. In March 1792 he bought 150 acres here. He received land for Revolutionary service, including at King's Mountain, and was among the first elders of Miller's Lutheran Church. Accounts differ on his home village, Wallruth in Baden or Grumbach in the Palatinate.

What the plaque says

Nicholas Gibbs Born in Germany in 1733, he served in the French and Indian War, later in the Revolution. He took up a homestead of 450 acres here in 1792 and built the log cabin which stands about 1/2 mile east. A member of Knox County's first court, he died in 1817 and is buried on the hill 50 yards north.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 10 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 11 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Museum of Appalachia — 13 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.
• Norris Dam and Norris Dam State Park — 15 mi
  TVA's first dam, finished in 1936 on the Clinch River, and the state park beside it with the 1798 Rice Grist Mill, built for a valley whose families were moved out.

More markers nearby

• Nicholas Gibbs Homestead — 0.8 mi
• Norris Freeway — 5.0 mi
• Fountain City Schools — 7.1 mi
• Fountain City United Methodist Church/Fountain Head Campground — 7.2 mi