My Genealogy Hound

COLONEL DAVID S. FORBES, who was engaged in business pursuits for nearly sixty years in this county, and who commanded the Sixty-eighth New York regiment from 1855 to 1864, was born at the village of Green, Chenango county, New York, February 11, 1817, and is a son of Col. John and Statira (Phelps) Forbes. The name of Forbes was originally written McForbes in Scotland, where the family was resident for several centuries back. Col. John Forbes, the father of Colonel David S. Forbes, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, where he married Statira Phelps and afterwards removed to Chenango county, this State. He was a merchant, commanded a regiment of New York militia, and in 1832 came to Fredonia, where he died, aged eighty-seven years, six months and fifteen days.

David S. Forbes received his education principally at Fredonia, to which he came in April, 1832. He was a clerk for one year with J. Z. Saxton, then two years with J. & A. F. Morrison, at Forestville. In 1835 he became a clerk for his father at Fredonia, and two years later became his and L. B. Grant’s partner in the general mercantile firm of John Forbes & Co. In 1841 this firm established a branch store at Sinclairville of which he became manager. In 1844 he engaged in the butter and cheese business in which he was the first dealer in the county to pay cash for those articles. From 1851 to 1855 he dealt in flour and grain and then was in various kinds of business until the breaking out of the late war. At its close he again resumed civil pursuits and was engaged in different lines of business until he retired from active life a few years ago.

In 1838 he attended a military school taught by Colonel Scott, in which he acquired quite a taste for military service, although he had served as a major in a militia regiment during the preceding year. In 1855 the inspector-general of the State induced him to accept a colonel’s commission and raise a regiment. He raised the 68th New York, which Hon. Reuben E. Fenton had failed to accomplish and commanded it until 1864. His regiment was the first in New York to volunteer in 1861, but by means of red tape-ism was never allowed to go to the front, although it was made the nucleus of four regiments in the field. In June, 1863, his regiment was ordered to Harrisburg, Pa., where he arrived with what remnant of it remained. Here again red tape policy prevented it from going into active service and it was sent back to Fredonia, where it was honorably mustered out of the service and discharged July 29, 1863.

In 1842 he married Catharine J. Abell, who died in 1875 and left him two children: Mrs. Geo. Benton, of Chicago; and Mrs. Catharine L. Cushing, widow of Commodore W. B. Cushing, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. After Mrs. Forbes’ death Col. Forbes married for his second wife, Sarah J. Starr, who is a native of Gowanda, Erie county.