When Catherine Hammond Gibson (1804-88) had her home built on Beacon Street in 1860, she was a pioneer in the settlement of the Back Bay which was built on newly-filled land. Her husband, John Gardner Gibson, a sugar merchant, had been lost at sea and so Catherine moved to the house with her son, Charles Hammond Gibson. Charles Gibson’s wife, Rosamond Warren Gibson (1846-1934), moved into the mansion in 1871. She had received the traditional education given to upper-class women in her day, learning French and taking dancing lessons from dancing master Lorenzo Papanti. When the Gibson House opened to the public in 1957, Marjorie Drake Ross (1901-97), a specialist on the decorative arts and author of The Book of Boston series, helped to acquire appropriate objects for the Gibson House and directed the cataloging of the collection. Today, museum tours include interpretive stories of life both “upstairs” and “downstairs” in Victorian Boston. The Victorian Society’s New England chapter has been based here since 1974. The Society is an advocate for historic preservation, and offers walking tours and lectures on the Victorian era.
