My Genealogy Hound

ELIAS FORBES, who is now enjoying a well-earned and comfortable repose in the evening of life, was born in Greene, Chenango county, N. Y., January 10, 1819, and is a son of John and Statira (Phelps) Forbes. Nothing is known of his paternal grandfather, except that he was a sailor and passed to the world beyond when his son John, (father) was nine years old. Jonathan Phelps, maternal grandfather of Elias Forbes, was a native of Connecticut and a sea-faring man, who, became a captain of a privateer during the Revolutionary war and captured several prizes. With the money this gained, added to the pension which was awarded him, he was enabled to live in luxury in his old age. He came to this county in 1835 and settled in Fredonia, where he resided until 1850, when he went to Rutledge, Cattaraugus county, to live with his daughter and subsequently died there at the age of ninety-six years. In religion he favored the Baptists, being an attendant at a church of that denomination, of which his wife was a member. Jonathan Phelps married Charity Beckwith, by whom he had twelve children, of whom Rodney is a farmer in Chenango county; Beckwith is a hatter in Central New York; Newell is a farmer at Bear Lake, Penna.; Statira (mother), Julia, married Lyman Shattuck; Susan, married Jonathan Thompson; Celestia, married a Mr. Wheeler; Asenath married David Shattuck, and China Maria married Edwin Adams. The mother died in 1870 in her ninety-sixth year; husband and wife by a singular coincidence each lacking just four years of completing a century of life. John Forbes (father) was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1790, and being left fatherless at the age of nine years, was thus early in life compelled to aid his mother in the maintenance of the family, which moved to Chenango county, this State, and settled in Greene; John having learned the trade of a tanner and currier. Afterward he purchased a farm of two hundred acres, which he cultivated in connection with operating a tannery. In the fall of 1831 he was compelled to dispose of his farm and tannery on account of ill health, and in the spring of 1832 he moved to this county and bought a farm of one hundred acres (now owned by Clinton Ball) in the corporation of Fredonia, where he remained two years and then sold it, shortly afterward engaging in the mercantile business at Fredonia, in which he continued until 1843. In 1852 he moved to Batavia, Genesee county, where he resided eleven years, and then went to Rochester, Monroe county, where he died May 2, 1878, aged eighty-eight years. He was colonel of a regiment in Chenango county and was drafted for the war of 1812, but peace was declared before he was ordered into service. In freemasonry he was W. M. of a Lodge in Greene. In religion he was a member of the Baptist church, of which he was a trustee nearly all his life, and always a very prominent man in church affairs. John Forbes was married in 1814 to Statira Phelps, the union resulting in the birth of five children, three sons and two daughters: Julia A., born in 1815 and married Louis B. Grant, a merchant at Forestville, and later at Fredonia; David S., a retired merchant of Fredonia, who married Catherine J. Abell; Maria, died at the age of three years; and John B. The mother died January 8, 1850, and John Forbes married for his second wife Lavinia M. Grant, a daughter of Jared Grant, of Chenango county, in June, 1850. She is still living in Rochester, Monroe county, at the age of eighty-three.

Elias Forbes was educated at the Fredonia academy and left school when he was eighteen years old to work as a clerk in his father’s store, in which position he remained four years. In 1844 he bought his father’s interest in the store and formed a partnership with his brother David S., under the firm-name of D. S. & E. Forbes; but David was later afflicted with inflammatory rheumatism and his father purchased his interest, which he subsequently sold to Elias and L. B. Grant, the firm then being known as Grant & Forbes. This firm continued eight years, when Mr. Forbes sold his interest to Mr. Grant, remained inactive for a year and a half and then formed a partnership with Robert McPherson, under the firm-name of McPherson & Forbes, with whom he continued two years and then bought him out and conducted the business alone until his health failed in 1858, when he sold to Horace Pemberton, and, in connection with Preston Barmore, formed a gas company for the purpose of lighting the village and streets of Fredonia. The use of natural gas in Fredonia was begun in 1821, and among the public places into which it was introduced was the hotel that occupied the site of the present Taylor House, which was illuminated when Gen. La Fayette passed through the village by the first gas used in the United States, and the gas-works then established were the first of their kind in the country. The spring first discovered and from which this gas was used is located on the north bank of Canadaway creek at the bridge crossing the stream on Main street. The gas from this well was sufficient for thirty burners and was used until 1858, when Preston Barmore sunk another well in the northwest part of the village, the shaft being thirty feet deep, six feet in diameter at the top and fourteen feet at the bottom, with two vertical borings, one, one hundred and the other one hundred and fifty feet deep. It was this well in which Mr. Forbes purchased a half interest. At first the well supplied two thousand cubic feet per day, through three miles of mains. In 1859 the company put in a gas receiver of twelve thousand cubic feet capacity and supplied private houses. In 1871 Albert Colburn sunk a well twelve hundred feet, for the purpose of supplying fuel for generating steam, but it proved inadequate and he bought out Mr. Barmore’s interest in the gas company, connected his with the company’s receiver, thus enabling them to supply the whole village. Of this company Mr. Forbes was elected president and held that office until 1878, when he sold out his interest and retired from business to spend the remainder of his days amid the surroundings of a most comfortable home. In religion he is an Episcopalian. In 1858 he was elected one of the wardens of Trinity Episcopal church in Fredonia and still holds the same position. He has been trustee of the village of Fredonia and held the office of treasurer for many years, and trustee of the old Fredonia academy here.

Elias Forbes was married November 5, 1843, to Rebecca E. Walworth, a daughter of Benjamin and Charlotte (Eddy) Walworth, her father being one of the most prominent physicians and surgeons in western New York, and for thirteen years was judge of Chautauqua county, and for several years was examiner in chancery. He resided in Fredonia, whither he came from Hoosic Falls, N. Y., in 1824. By this marriage there were three children: Kosciusko W., born December 14, 1844, married to Nellie A. Payne, by whom he has three daughters, and lives in Buffalo; Charlotte E., born November 26, 1846, married Isaac S. Kingsland, a civil engineer, and was J. Condit Smith’s chief engineer — he died in 1883, leaving a widow, one son and three daughters; and John B., born August 19, 1855 and died May 30, 1862.