Charles S. Bibb (1812–1832)

President Andrew Jackson appointed Charles S. Bibb, a Kentucky lawyer only twenty years old, to the highest court in territorial Arkansas in 1832, but when he took a steamboat to bring his family to the Arkansas Territory, he came down with cholera near the Ohio River’s Yellow Banks at Owensboro, Kentucky, and died. Nevertheless, history identifies him as a judge of Superior Court of Arkansas (predecessor to the Arkansas Supreme Court), and he apparently performed a few duties before the fatal trip. He earned some significance in the state’s history by being one of the first people to die in the great cholera epidemic that also struck Arkansas that year.

Charles Scott Bibb was born in July 1812 at Franklin, Kentucky. He was the eldest son of George Mortimer Bibb, a lawyer who had a celebrated career as chief justice of Kentucky’s Supreme Court, twice a United States senator, and secretary of the treasury of the United States. Little was ever recorded about Charles Bibb’s early education, but he had begun to practice law at Franklin when Judge James Woodson Bates was not reappointed to the top territorial court in Arkansas. Bibb’s father, by then a U.S. senator, was a friend and political ally of President Jackson and presumably prevailed on him to appoint his son, who had just become a Kentucky trial judge, to the Arkansas court. The younger Bibb had already married—to Rebecca Mitchell of Franklin—and had three children.

The Arkansas Gazette reported on June 27, 1832, that Bibb was in Arkansas and had begun to work, and two weeks later it reported that he was returning to Kentucky and would return in the fall with his family. Returning to Arkansas in October, Bibb got on the steamboat Witch Watch and headed down the Ohio River toward the Mississippi. He suddenly became violently ill and left the ship at Owensboro, Kentucky, and went to the home of a brother-in-law, where he died.

The Gazette carried a message on November 7, 1832, from a Russellville (Pope County) correspondent: “We learn with deep regret the death of Charles S. Bibb, Esq., recently appointed United States Judge in the Territory of Arkansas. He died at his brother-in-law’s home near the Yellow Banks, on Monday, October 15, having been attacked the morning before with the Cholera. He was the oldest son of George M. [Mortimer] Bibb, United States Senator from Kentucky.”

The same day that Bibb died on his way to Arkansas, the young circuit clerk of St. Francis County, who also had been on a steamboat, died suddenly of cholera. The epidemic spread across the state, causing general alarm. In Little Rock (Pulaski County), the city created the first board of health and a hospital.

President Jackson appointed Alexander M. Clayton of Tennessee to the Superior Court position left vacant by Bibb’s death.

For additional information:
“Death of Judge Bibb,” Arkansas Gazette, November 7, 1832, P. 3.

“From the Washington Telegraph.” Oswego Palladium, November 14, 1832, p. 3.

“News of Other Days; 100 Years Ago.” Arkansas Gazette, November 5, 1932, p. 4.

Newburgh Telegraph, November 15, 1832, p. 3.

White, Lonnie J. “Kentuckians in Arkansas Territorial Politics.” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 60 (October 1962): 314–320.

Ernest Dumas
Little Rock, Arkansas