Otis Gibson (; Pinyin: Jīshùn; Foochow Romanized: Gĭ-sông; December 8, 1826 – January 25, 1889) was a Methodist pastor, best known for his missionary work to the Chinese in Foochow, China and in San Francisco, California. Life Early life Born on a farm in Moira, New York, Otis Gibson had five brothers and one sister. He was converted at the age of 13 after the sudden death of his brother. When he was 19, he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. In the early 1850s he attended Dickinson College. Later he became a teacher and went to a Quaker settlement in Maryland to teach, where he met his wife-to-be Eliza Chamberlain. Shortly before he graduated from college, Otis Gibson decided to go into the ministry and was appointed as a missionary to Foochow. He graduated in June 1854 with a D.D. and was licensed to preach on 4 November the same year. A few months before he and Eliza were sent to China, they got married in a Methodist Camp Meeting. Missionary work in China Otis Gibson's ordination was given in 1854, but his scheduled sail had to be postponed till spring the next year because the recording secretary forgot to record the recommendation. On April 3, 1855 Gibson and wife set sail from New York Harbor on a clipper ship bound for Shanghai. On that day Gibson wrote, "Believing that God ordered our course, we feel content and satisfied that all is for the best." Finally they reached Foochow on August 13, 1855, following Gibson's teacher Erastus Wentworth with whom he got acquainted at Dickinson College. In 1856, Otis Gibson and his Methodist co-laborers established two churches in the city, namely, and Church of Heavenly Peace, which were the first two Methodist churches built in East Asia. On December 26, 1856, Gibson purchased a place in the South bank of River Min and established there in 1859 a commodious wooden Western-style boarding school for laymen and ministers. In the 1860s Gibson also helped in the translation work of the Bible and other Christian books into the local Foochow dialect. On June 14, 1857, Otis Gibson and Robert S. Maclay baptized their first convert, a native tradesman named Ting Ang (). Some weeks later he and Maclay made an unannounced visit to Ting Ang's house and found no sign of idols. During his tenure in China, Gibson also started the Methodist