John Murray Forbes - Life and Career

Life and Career

Forbes was born in Bordeaux, France. His parents were Ralph Bennett Forbes and wife Margaret Perkins, niece of Thomas Handasyd Perkins, founder of a Boston Brahmin family merchant dynasty involved in the China trade. The Forbes family settled in Milton, 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 and diplomat. His cousin was Francis Blackwell Forbes, both grandchildren of James Grant Forbes I. His brother was Robert Bennet Forbes (1804-1889), sea captain and China merchant.

Forbes attended school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, then at Round Hill School in Northampton, Massachusetts, from 1823-28. He was one of three brothers sent by their uncle to Canton, China, and achieved some financial success during a short time spent trading in Canton. However, unlike his brother Robert Bennet Forbes who devoted himself to the China trade, Forbes returned to Boston and became an early railroad investor and landowner.

As with Jay Gould and E. H. Harriman, Forbes was an important figure in the building of America's railroad system. From March 28, 1846 through 1855, he was president of Michigan Central Railroad, and he was a director and president of the Chicago, 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 for Abraham Lincoln. Staunchly pro-Union, he is given credit for founding the New England Loyal 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 Democrat Grover Cleveland elected President.

Forbes's many philanthropic activities included the re-establishment of Milton Academy, a preparatory school south of Boston, 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 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and father of William Cameron Forbes. Another of his sons was John Malcolm Forbes, the yachtsman and horseman. His great great great great grandson is Jonathan Meath, a renowned Emmy award-winning television producer.