I've been asking myself (and others) that question for several days. In the first edition, I mentioned Mifflin Gibbs's younger brother Isaac P. Gibbs and his wife as living in Barkerville. He's mentioned as one of the blacks who suffered losses in the 1868 Barkerville fire, while "Mrs. R. Gibbs saved her things, but lost her house."
I quoted one of Rebecca Gibbs's poems in that edition, and in Bluesprint we have two...plus Wayde Compton's brief biography of her, giving her birthdate as 1808 and her death (in Victoria) in 1873. If the birthdate is correct, she was too old by 20 years to be a likely wife for Isaac, who was born in the late 1820s.
The surname may be a complete coincidence, but I hope to find out more about this person.
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