William Hathaway Forbes

William Hathaway Forbes (1840–1897) was an American businessman.

William Hathaway Forbes
BornOctober 31, 1840
Milton, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedOctober 11, 1897
Naushon Island, Dukes County, Massachusetts, U.S.
EducationHarvard University
Spouse(s)Edith Emerson
Children5 sons (including W. Cameron Forbes and Edward W. Forbes), 2 daughters
Parent(s)John Murray Forbes
Sarah Hathaway
RelativesRalph Waldo Emerson (father-in-law)
John Malcolm Forbes (brother)
Ruth Forbes Young (granddaughter)

Early life

William Hathaway Forbes was born on October 31, 1840 in Milton, Massachusetts. His father, John Murray Forbes, was a French-born railroad magnate.

Forbes enrolled at Harvard University in 1857, but he was expelled in 1860.[1] During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, he served in the 1st Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry of the Union Army from 1861 to 1863, and in the 2nd Regiment of Cavalry, Massachusetts Volunteers from 1863 to 1865.[1] He was captured by the Confederate States Army on July 6, 1864 and imprisoned in Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina until December 1864.[1] He received a bachelor of arts degree from Harvard University in 1871.[1]

Career

Forbes started his career at J.M. Forbes & Co., an investment firm founded by his father.[1]

In the later 1870s, Forbes was approached by Gardiner Greene Hubbard and Thomas Sanders to invest in their Bell Telephone Company.[2] Not only did Forbes invest, he encouraged some of his wealthy acquaintances to do so too.[2] Subsequently, Forbes served as the President of the Bell Telephone Company from 1879 to 1887.[1][3]

Personal life

Forbes married Edith Emerson, the daughter of poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.[3] They had five sons, Ralph Emerson Forbes, W. Cameron Forbes, John Murray Forbes, Edward W. Forbes, Waldo Emerson Forbes and Alexander Forbes, and two daughters, Edith Forbes and Ellen Randolph Forbes.[1]

Death

Forbes died on October 11, 1897 on Naushon Island, Massachusetts.[3]

Further reading
  • Pier, Arthur Stanwood. Forbes: Telephone Pioneer (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1953).[4]
gollark: Individually, at least some people are competent and smart. Unfortunately, nobody has been able to organize anything so that the big groups work competently and smartly.
gollark: HAHAHAHAHAHA
gollark: They do actions. They're just bad actions.
gollark: Nobody is doing *anything* about the imminent [REDACTED] apioform █████ ██████ ███████████ ████ in 2026, either.
gollark: I mean, the MiniLM thing Minoteaur prototypes use for semantic search is only 80MB on disk so probably about the same in RAM.

References
  1. "Edith Emerson Forbes and William Hathaway Forbes Papers and Additions". Massachusetts Historical Society. Retrieved October 12, 2012.
  2. Farrell, Betty (1993). Elite Families: Class and Power in Nineteenth-Century Boston. Albany, New York: SUNY Press. p. 154. ISBN 0791415937. OCLC 26543883.
  3. "William Hathaway Forbes". The Norfolk Virginian. Norfolk, Virginia. October 24, 1897. p. 10. Retrieved October 12, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Forbes: telephone pioneer". WorldCat. OCLC 699889. Retrieved October 12, 2012.
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