Santa Clara County
Biographies
WILLIAM FORBES
WILLIAM FORBES. One of the earliest landmarks of Campbell
is the small fruit ranch and blacksmith shop of William Forbes, a
California pioneer of 1854, and a master mechanic who has made the most of his
trade and general opportunities. He was born in Columbiana county,
Ohio, February 23, 1828, and is the third of three sons and five
daughters born to John and Sally (Johnson) Forbes, natives of the north of
Ireland. The parents were not married in their native land, but met in the
state of Ohio, whither John Forbes had gone as a young man, and where Sally
Johnson had settled with her father James, on a farm in Knox county.
Mr. Johnson was a farmer and dairyman all of his active life, and died in
Ohio at an advanced age. Mr. Forbes purchased a farm in Columbiana county,
five miles from Lisbon, and there spent the remainder of his days, successfully
tilling the land, and exerting his energies in behalf of the Presbyterian church,
of which he was a devout member. In politics he was a Democrat.
Reared on the farm in Columbiana county,
William Forbes attended the public schools as opportunity offered, and at an
early age learned the wheelwright’s trade. He came to California by way of
Panama in 1854, and as a miner operated in the mines around Placerville and in
Tuolumne county for a couple of years. Not realizing
his expectations, he settled on a ranch in the Napa valley for a couple of
years, and in 1858 removed to what is now Clear Lake, but where there were as
yet few signs of habitation. His little shop was the first sign of business
activity in the neighborhood, and he lived in a little shack for many weeks,
enduring many hardships ere prospects began to brighten. His industry seems to
have been contagious, for others began to settle around him, and lent
encouragement to his brave efforts to succeed. He was the promoter of all of
the original town enterprises, and even built the Sag jail, a unique structure
with a hole in the top, through which the poor unfortunate who had incurred the
wrath of the authorities was let down by a rope to his imprisonment.
In 1873 Mr. Forbes located on his present place of three
acres, on Saratoga avenue, where he built a home and
shop, which was soon doing a flourishing business. The surrounding land was set
out to fruit, garden, and small farming, and farmers came from miles in the
country to receive the benefit of his skillful work. Years have rolled by, and
people have come in hundreds to swell the list of upbuilders,
yet this same shop abides, with its evidences of large patronage, and its
facilities for meeting all demands in the line of blacksmithing and general
repairing. Young blood has been infused into the management of the shop in the
person of the owner’s son, George W., to whom his father has taught the
trade, and upon whom he implicitly relies, not only for his aid in the present,
but to succeed to the business when he lays aside its many cares. In 1891 Mr.
Forbes rented his place and settled on a dairy ranch in San Luis Obispo county, having eighty cows, and succeeding well with the
production of butter. Two years later found him again in his
old shop, and he has ever since devoted himself to its management.
In Sacramento, Cal., Mr. Forbes married Mary McCullough,
who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and afterward lived with her parents in New
York state, and in Placerville, Cal., where the elder
McCullough died at about sixty-five years of age. Three children comprise the
Forbes family, of whom George W. is with his
father, Ida N. is at home, and Mary Jane is now Mrs. Shirley, of
Los Gatos, Cal. Mr. Forbes has taken an active interest in Republican
politics ever since coming to the west, and has served as school director for
eight years. In 1891 he was appointed a delegate to the county convention. He
is a member in good standing of the Methodist Episcopal church of Campbell, and
contributes in generous manner to its maintenance. He is public-spirited and
enterprising, and his example of industry and sobriety may well be followed by
the seeker of success.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 08 May 2015.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Page
590. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Marie
Hassard.