The son of African American Florida politician Rev. Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs II, Thomas Van Renssalaer Gibbs was born in 1855.  Like his father, Thomas was also a politician, and served as a member of the Florida State House of Representatives, and as a member of the 1886 Florida Constitutional Convention.  Rep. Thomas Gibbs was a co-founder of Florida A&M College, a historical black university located in Tallahassee, Florida, and he served as its Vice President until his death in 1898. Thomas married Alice Menard, the daughter of John Willis Menard, a Louisiana French-Creole who became the first person of African descent elected to the U.S. Congress in 1868.

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