William Hathaway Forbes

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]

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]

Forbes married Edith Emerson, the daughter of poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.[3] They had six sons, Ralph Emerson Forbes, W. Cameron Forbes, John Murray Forbes (who died at age 17 of appendicitis),[4] Edward W. Forbes, Waldo Emerson Forbes and Alexander Forbes, and two daughters, Edith Forbes and Ellen Randolph Forbes.[1]

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

• Telephone in United States history

• Pier, Arthur Stanwood. Forbes: Telephone Pioneer (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1953).[5]

• Forbes, William Hathaway. The poems of William Hathaway Forbes, 1881 to 1897 (1898) online