Joseph Barlow Forbes

Compiled by his daughter, Lenore

Joseph Barlow Forbes is Cindy's maternal great-grandfather. Joseph Barlow Forbes was a gifted teacher, explorer, and leader. He was descended from King Gregory the Great of Scotland, where the Forbes Castle in Scotland is still standing and is a conspicuous landmark. Joseph Barlow Forbes' daughter, Lenore, wrote this.

Joseph Barlow Forbes was of royal descent. One of his ancestors was Salvantius Forbes, who married Morvilla, daughter of King Gregory the Great of Scotland, about 870 A.D. All of the Forbes of Scotland descended from this union, among them several barons of Scotland. Forbes Castle is still a conspicuous landmark there. The first of this line to emigrate to America, as far as our records show, was John Forbes, who with two of his brothers came from Scotland and settled at Enfield, Massachusetts in 1740. A little later a family named Gilpatrick located at Orland, Maine, near Buckaport on the Penobscot River. John Forbes had a son named Joseph, and his son, also named Joseph, married Sarah Anna Gilpatrick September 6, 1835. Shortly after the Forbes family moved to Maine they had nine children, of whom Joseph Barlow Forbes was the third. He came to a home of high culture and refinement. His mother and two sisters were graduates of the Boston Conservatory of Music. He was gifted and educated in Literature and Dramatics. He was a great student of Shakespeare's works. I remember him quoting an entire play from memory. He took part in many dramatic productions and musicals. In his schoolwork he never failed to teach and train a boy's quartet and even when they were grown men called them “My Boys”.

His boyhood was spent in Maine, where he received a common school education, which was later supplemented by some high school education, and college training in Maine and in Boston where the family later moved. An uncle was a prominent shipbuilder of Bangor, and young Forbes took every advantage of his opportunities to become acquainted with ships and shipping. He made two trans-Atlantic voyages in his youth, one taking him to Sicily through the Straits of Gibraltar, and the other around the Cape of Good Hope, to India. After his return from his second voyage, when he had decided to become a navigator, the Civil War broke out and he immediately volunteered, in April, 1861, and went to a training camp at Willetts Point Long Island. When the training period was over, he joined the forces at the front in the Virginias and took part in numerous engagements from the first Battle of Bull Run until the close of the Peninsular campaign under General George B. McClellan. At the time his company was discharged, and 1863, he held the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Second Maine Volunteers.

Shortly afterward he was assigned to military duty in California, and sailed from Boston around Cape Horn to San Francisco as Second Officer on the sailing craft, Pocahontas. He was on the staff of General Bidwell as adjutant general, with the rank of Major at Chico, in the Sacrament Valley. After residing there for some time, he and another young man went horseback riding to Idaho City, Idaho.

The town burned on the night of their arrival, and the two set out for Salt Lake City, traveling the entire distance by horses and arriving in the summer of 1865. Joseph B. Forbes met President Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, and was introduced by him to Bishop Lenard E. Harrington of American Fork, who was seeking a teacher for the village. He negotiated with young Forbes, who accompanied him to American Fork, where he became a teacher in a subscription school including pupils of both sexes and all ages and grades. Here he was destined to spend nearly all of the remaining sixty-two years of his eventful life and accomplish most of his splendid labors. This was in the year 1865.

In 1851, Hyrum Dayton crossed the plains with his family. Shortly after their arrival in Salt Lake City, a daughter was born to them whom they named Nancy Dayton. After a few years her mother adopted her, for Nancy's mother had married Issac Cooper. The family home was in American Fork. The date of Nancy's birth was September 14, 1851. She attended the school conducted by Joseph B. Forbes, and on January 1, 1866 they were married, with Bishop Harrington performing the ceremony. To this union were born 13 children, four sons and nine daughters. Two sons and eight daughters survive, in addition to numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

After teaching in American Fork one school year, Professor Forbes and his wife moved to Midway, Wasatch County, where he had taken a position as a teacher. This was in the fall of 1866. One January 29, he became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The baptism was performed by Elder John Huber, and the new convert walked in his wet clothing a mile to his home. He later taught in Riverdale, Weber County. In the fall of 1869 he was recalled to American Fork by Bishop Harrington. Here he established the first free school system in the Territory of Utah, and educational work went on without interruption in American Fork.

On April 10, 1879, he married Mary Jane Gardner, in the endowment house in Salt Lake City. She was the oldest daughter of James and Jane Trelphall Gardner, early pioneers of American Fork. She was also a student of Joseph B. Forbes. To this union were born eleven children, three boys and eight girls. Two boys and four girls preceded him in death. This left the mother one boy and four girls with a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

During the time of the Manifesto, he, with many of the Church leaders, spent some time in the Utah prison because they would not desert their families.

In the fall of 1883 he moved to Canjos County, Colorado, where he was hired as a teacher and superintendent of schools. Nancy, his first wife, had a lovely home and was a nurse and midwife. She refused to go to Colorado, but chose to remain in her home in American Fork with her family and work. So it was decided that Janie, who had no home and whose five children were small, should go with her husband. Joseph, besides his schoolwork, operated a mercantile business. A terrible tragedy came to them. The five children contracted scarlet fever and three of them died within two weeks. The other two little girls were very ill but did survive.

In 1897 the family returned to American Fork to resume his teaching.

Nancy continued her nursing and Janie did her part helping to supplement Joseph's wages. She raised a large garden and supplied both families with vegetables. The peaches, cherries, pears, apples and berries raised on the lot were divided. She fed two pigs each year, dividing the meat and lard. Each day she made fresh yeast, which she sold or traded for flour, and in so doing, kept both families in flour. She sewed for both families and the children in school came to her home at noon with their father for dinner. There was no limit to her willingness to work and to do her share.

His residence in American Fork continued until the death of his wife, Nancy, April 21, 1926. In the fall of 1926, he moved to Goshen, Idaho, where he lived with his plural wife, Mrs. Jane G. Forbes, until his death on May 5, 1927. The body was brought to American Fork, and funeral services were held in the Alpine Stake Tabernacle on Sunday, May 8, 1927. At the time of his death and burial, the flags on the public buildings flew at half-mast. As the funeral cortège passed through the streets to the Tabernacle from the home of his daughter, Zina Priday, hundreds of school children lined both sides of the street and each placed a flower on the bier. After impressive ceremonies in the Tabernacle, the ritual of the Women's Auxiliary was performed at the grave and taps was sounded by a bugler who had once been a pupil of the deceased.

In religious and civic activities, Professor Forbes was unusually prominent. Most of his work in these directions was done in American Fork. He was a city councilman for some years and also served as City Recorder. He helped prepare the first ordinances of American Fork City, and wrote copies of them to post on walls and trees for the information of the citizens. He kept records of the city so neatly and accurately and in such excellent penmanship that competent judges pronounced them a model for other municipalities. He was the first president of the YMMIA in American Fork, and was a prominent member of the ward choir, and leading man in the local dramatic company. He was also active in the preparation and the staging of musical entertainments. He retired from these activities when he was about 82. His teaching labors ended at 79, making him the oldest teacher in point of service in Utah.

His fellow-citizens bestowed on him many marks of honor. The most significant of these was given April 15, 1921. On that day hundreds of his former pupils and other friends joined him in celebration of “Forbes Day”, paying him a tribute seldom equaled in any man's lifetime. On January 1, 1916 and in 1926 he and his wife celebrated their fiftieth and sixtieth wedding anniversaries, being joined in the festivities by their family and friends. There was named for him in American Fork a schoolhouse, “The Forbes Building”, and a tree was set in a cement base, also named for him.

Before his retirement from active teaching, an educational writer came to Utah and prepared an illustrated sketch of his life and educational labors, which was published in the Middle West School Review of Omaha, Nebraska, in its issue on September 1914.

The brick schoolhouse built in 1892 honoring his name was torn down upon enlargement of the Harrington School. In 1950, however, a large elementary school building, modern in every respect, was completed and was named the Forbes School in honor of his work.

Thus is epitomized the earthly career of a man who will always be held in high esteem by thousands who have known him and his influence for good. No one who knew him could do other than love him; every life that his life touched was immeasurably enriched; and when the role of earth's noblemen is completed, the name of JOSEPH BARLOW FORBES will be among the brightest and the most excellent.

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The following was penned by Mrs. Lara L. Timpson in commemoration of the razing of the old Forbes School.

THE PASSING OF THE RED SCHOOL HOUSE

  
  	I heard the school bell ringing yestermorn.
  	It made me feel so sad and so forlorn.
  	It took me back some thirty years.
  	It filled my eyes with salty tears.
  	It filled my heart with longing and pain.
  	And I was just a girl again.
  	Can I forget the days of long ago?
  	They passed on weary feet and slow,
  	They've torn the schoolhouse down beside the track,
  	They can't tear down the memories; they come back.
  	I see the Master's solemn face; I hear his stern command,
  	I almost see the old yard ruler in his hand;
  	I see him bow his head in prayer, the starting of each day.
  	I almost hear the cough, between each sentence he did say.
  	In memory I raise my head and smile,
  	At a certain boy across the aisle.
  	I look down the row, they are sitting there still;
  	Hever, Sam, Harve, Joe, Len, and Will, Matney, Vent,
  	Bessie, Edith, Em and Lill.
  	And Oh! My heart is heave, I long to see them so,
  	And play on the grounds, as we did thirty years ago.
  	Mr. Forbes, we loved and feared, never can forget,
  	A lump comes in our throats, eyes with tears are wet.
  	Folks are making a brand new town.
  	Tearing our old landmarks down.
  	But the town shall live with me,
  	Just the way it used to be.
  			~Laura L. Timpson

I should like to add my tribute to my illustrious Father. He was an elderly man with snow-white hair when I was a child. He was a strict disciplinarian, but dealt us with kindness and love. He always had a beautiful story to teach a moral.

The sincere faith-promoting prayers he offered as we knelt around the breakfast table were an inspiration then and are still so in my memory.

He installed in me the necessity of doing my best in whatever I did. Careless work he would not permit. I still remember the joy he expressed when I was hired as a teacher in the American Fork City school following in his footsteps. The advice he gave me has remained with me throughout my teaching years. “My dear,” he said, “Remember you are not going into the school to teach only reading, writing, and arithmetic, but in your hands will be placed a small piece of soft clay out of which you are to help build character.”

He taught me to love, honor and respect my mother. At the age of 87, the day before he passed away, he took my hand in his, kissed me, and then said, “I hope you will always remember your Mother is the best woman God every placed on this earth.”

I, his daughter, Lenore revere his memory — A great Intelligent, Religious, Wise Father full of love for all his fellow men.