Born into slavery in 1835, Isabella Gibbons grew up in Charlottesville before moving to UVA as a teenager to serve as a cook for professors William B. Rogers and Francis H. Smith. While living on grounds, she married her husband, William Gibbons, who worked for Professor William McGuffey at Pavilion IX. Despite laws prohibiting educating enslaved people, Isabella learned to read, in turn teaching her four children born between 1850 and 1857. During the Civil War, Isabella nursed wounded soldiers as UVA served as a Confederate military hospital. Following her emancipation, she became the first African American teacher at the Charlottesville Freedmen’s School (also known as the Jefferson School) where she taught until her death in 1889.

Below you can explore an interactive 360 degree “Then and Now” panorama of the Pavilion VI garden. In the 19th century, this space served as a work yard for the Pavilion and would have contained an outdoor summer kitchen, a washroom, a smokehouse, and other outbuildings that supported the lifestyle of the pavilion residents. Many unknown enslaved individuals worked and lived in this work yard space from the beginnings of the University until emancipation. Isabella Gibbons was owned by the Smith family until 1863, and would have occupied these spaces.