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| - William Harvey Gibson was born at Cross Creek Township, Jefferson County, Ohio on May 16, 1821 to John Gibson (1778–1852) and Jeannette Gibson (née Coe) (1782–1850). He was raised in a family that valued hard work, plain dress, temperance and sympathy for the unfortunate and opposed slavery and "social gilded livery." The Gibson family also placed special attention on developing good oratory and debating skills and held a regular family debating circle during the long winter evenings. On his mother's side, Gibson was descended from Robert Coe who arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634 aboard the ship the Francis. On his father's side, he was of Scotch-Irish descent, the grandson of Colonel John Gibson, commanding officer of Virginia's 7th Regiment during the American Revolutionary War, Secretary of the Territory of Indiana (1800–1810), and Acting Governor of Indiana (1811–1813). William Harvey Gibson was known to everyone except his mother as "Bill." He was the tenth of 11 children. He had five brothers and five older sisters (Sally, Polly, Hetty, Patty, Eliza, Robert McDowell, Moses Coe, John Kendall, Benjamin, and James Allen). Gibson's father purchased 320 acres from the Federal Government in Seneca County, Ohio in 1821. When he was only four months old, the Gibson family moved to Seneca County from Jefferson County. The family settled in Melmore, Ohio. At the time, it was still a wooded frontier and home to Seneca and Mohawk Indians. Both sides of the family were Presbyterians and Gibson recalls being baptized with ten Indian children by Rev. James B. Findley with the ceremony being translated by the Indian interpreter "Black Jack." Gibson also recalls hearing Chief "Grey Eyes" preach. In the 1820s, the Gibson brothers took their corn for milling at the mill that the U.S. government built for the Wyandotte Indians on the Upper Sandusky River. Gibson attended the first school organized in Seneca County, Ohio in 1826 with his brothers Robert, Benjamin and James Allen. It was located in the second room of James Latham's log cabin and the teacher was Mrs. Laura Latham. The Lathams later donated land and asked the community to help build a one-room log schoolhouse, which became known as Craw's Hill School. It was run by Headmaster Edward Ranger. Among Gibson's early schoolmates were Anson Burlingame (diplomat), Consul Wilshire Butterfield (author and historian), O. D. Conger (U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator from Michigan), and Charles Foster (35th Governor of Ohio and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury). In his late teens, Gibson was eager to explore the American West. Together with his brother Robert McDowell Gibson and his neighbors John Kennedy and James Downs, he formed an exploration party that traveled west to explore the Territory of Iowa. The trip was a disaster with Kennedy and Downs dying by the time they reached Iowa City. The Gibson brothers returned to Melmore, Ohio. It would be their youngest brother James Allen Gibson who would explore the West and settle in Kansas. Bill and his brother Robert McDowell Gibson (who would later become a practicing M.D.), enrolled in Ashland Academy in Richland County, Ohio in 1841. (The school later became Ashland University and Ashland Theological Seminary). Here, he honed his debating and oratory skills, becoming known for his strong position on temperance. He learned the carpenters trade, and studied law.
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