George Gibbs (1776–1833), mineralogist and patron of science, was born in Newport, Rhode Island. His father, expecting him to follow in the merchant-shipping business from which the family derived its wealth, sent him to China in 1796. The younger Gibbs, however, preferred travel and mineralogy. He toured, studied, and amassed a mineral collection in Europe, 1801–05. When Gibbs returned to the United States, his holdings of mineral specimens were the largest in North America, and he opened them to scholars for study. By 1812 his friendship with Professor Benjamin Silliman led him to place a portion of the collection on deposit at Yale College (later Yale University), and in 1825 the school purchased it in its entirety for $20,000. Gibbs also funded student prizes at Yale and encouraged Silliman to found the American Journal of Science and Arts. He died at his estate on Long Island and was buried in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. The mineral gibbsite is named in his honor (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; WHi: Gibbs Family Papers; OED description begins James A. H. Murray, J. A. Simpson, E. S. C. Weiner, and others, eds., The Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed., 1989, 20 vols. description ends ; Newport Mercury, 10 Aug. 1833; American Journal of Science and Arts 25 [1834]: 214–5).