Winthrop Sargent Gilman was born in 1808 in
Marietta, Ohio to merchant
Benjamin Ives Gilman and his wife Hannah (Robbins) Gilman. His father Benjamin, born in 1766, was a native of
Exeter, New Hampshire. His ancestors were among the most prominent early settlers. His father Benjamin I. Gilman graduated in the first class of the
Phillips Exeter Academy, a private preparatory school. Gilman developed his business career in
St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a merchant with major groceries and related businesses in the region. He resided across the
Mississippi River in
Alton, Illinois, a free state, and had a warehouse there with his partner Godfrey. Supporting the abolition movement, he allowed publisher
Elijah Parish Lovejoy to hide a recently acquired printing press in a Gilman warehouse in Alton. (Three had been destroyed by pro-slavery activists.) In the ensuing riot, the angry mob killed Lovejoy and burned Gilman's warehouse to the ground. Before the Civil War, Gilman moved to New York City and entered the family banking business. Gilman, Son & Co. in New York often acted in conjunction with the interests of the influential
Brown family of
Providence, Rhode Island, founders of
Brown University. Subsequently, John Nicholas Brown and the Gilman Land Company, an offshoot of the Gilman family banking business, were involved in the development of the Gilman Block in
Sioux City, Iowa, as well as other real estate properties. ==Marriage and family ==