- John Murray Forbes
Infobox Person|name=John Murray Forbes
caption=
dead=dead
birth_date=birth date|1813|2|23|mf=y
birth_place=Bordeaux ,France
death_date=death date and age|1898|10|12|1813|2|23|mf=y
death_place=John Murray Forbes (
February 23 1813 –October 12 1898 ) was an Americanrailroad magnate ,merchant ,philanthropist and abolitionist. He was president of both theMichigan Central railroad and theChicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in the 1850s.Biography
Forbes was born in
Bordeaux ,France . His parents were Ralph Bennet Forbes and wife Margaret Perkins, niece ofThomas Handasyd Perkins , founder of aBoston Brahmin family merchant dynasty involved in the China trade. The Forbes family settled inMilton, Massachusetts , where his father was an energetic but unsuccessful businessman who died when John was only six. His father's brother was John Murray Forbes (1771-1831),lawyer anddiplomat . His cousin wasFrancis Blackwell Forbes , both grandchildren ofJames Grant Forbes I . His brother wasRobert Bennet Forbes (1804-1889),sea captain and Chinamerchant .Forbes attended school at
Phillips Academy inAndover, Massachusetts , then atRound Hill School inNorthampton, Massachusetts , from 1823-28. He was one of three brothers sent by their uncle to Canton, and achieved some financial success during a short time spent trading in Canton. However, unlike his brotherRobert Bennet Forbes who devoted himself to the China trade, Forbes returned toBoston and became an earlyrailroad investor and landowner.As with
Jay Gould andE. H. Harriman , Forbes was an important figure in the building of America's railroad system. FromMarch 28 1846 through 1855, he was president ofMichigan Central Railroad , and he was a director and president of theChicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad , he helped with the growth of the American Middle West.He supplied money and weapons to New Englanders to fight slavery in
Kansas and in 1859 entertained John Brown. In 1860 he was an elector forAbraham Lincoln . Staunchly pro-Union, he is given credit for founding the New EnglandLoyal Publication Society in early 1863 (Smith 1948). A delegate to the Republican conventions of 1876, 1880 and 1884, he eventually became displeased with the Republican party and worked successfully to get DemocratGrover Cleveland elected President.Forbes's many philanthropic activities included the re-establishment of
Milton Academy , a preparatory school south ofBoston, Massachusetts in 1884.Edward Waldo Emerson , Ralph Waldo Emerson's son, published Forbes biography in the September 1899 issue of "Atlantic" magazine. The Emerson and Forbes families were close. John Murray's son,William Hathaway Forbes , married Ralph's daughter,Edith Emerson . In "Letters and Social Aims",Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of Forbes: "Never was such force, good meaning, good sense, good action, combined with such domestic lovely behavior, such modesty and persistent preference for others. Wherever he moved he was the benefactor... How little this man suspects, with his sympathy for men and his respect for lettered and scientific people, that he is not likely, in any company, to meet a man superior to himself," and "I think this is a good country that can bear such a creature as he."His cousin
Francis Blackwell Forbes (1839-1908) is the great-grandfather of 2004 U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry. His eldest son,William Hathaway Forbes (1840-1897) became the first president of theAmerican Telephone and Telegraph Company and father ofWilliam Cameron Forbes .ee also
*
Forbes family of Boston
*Captain Robert Bennet Forbes House References
* "Life and Recollections of John Murray Forbes", ed. by Sarah Forbes Hughes, Two Volumes, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899.
* "An American Railroad Builder: John Murray Forbes", by Henry Pearson, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1911.
* "Forbes: Telephone Pioneer", by Arthur Pier, 1953.
* Smith, George Winston. “Broadsides for Freedom: Civil War Propaganda in New England.” "The New England Quarterly", Vol. 21, No. 3. (Sep., 1948), pp. 291-312.
*External links
* [http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/johnforbes.html Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography: John Murray Forbes]
* " [http://oprt.org/history/timeline.html Timeline of Old Plank Road Trail history and development] ". RetrievedMarch 1 2005 .
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