William Jehiel Forbes, B.A. 1877 ( From Yale Obituaries)


Born July 19, 1856, in Jersey City, N. J. Died June 2,9, 1921, in Chatham, N. J.
William Jehiel Forbes, the elder of the two sons of Robert Wasson Forbes (B.A. 1842, M.D. 1845) and Hannah Maria (Edwards) Forbes, was born in Jersey City, N. J., July 19, 1856. His father took a medical course at the University of Pans after leaving Yale, subsequently practiced in New Haven and New York for a few years, and then became en- gaged in the wholesale lumber and shipping business in New York, at first with his brother, William J. Forbes, and later with his son. They were the first to establish a regular export trade with Australia, sending merchandise in their own ves- sels to New South Wales and Victoria. Dr. Forbes served as a commissioner for New South Wales at the Centennial Exposi- tion in Philadelphia in 1876, and in 1878 was a commissioner at the Pans Exposition. He was the son of William Jehiel and Charlotte Antoinette (Root) Forbes, whose grandfather, Jeremiah Curtis, graduated at Yale in 1724. The American progenitor of the Forbes family was James Forbes, who came from Scotland to Hartford, Conn , in 1672. Hannah Edwards Forbes was the daughter of Timothy and Sarah (Haigh) Edwards, and a great-granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards (BA 1720).
William J. Forbes was prepared for college in Brooklyn, N Y ,—at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and at Professor J C Overheiser's School His appointments were a Junior first dispute and a Senior dissertation. The summer of 1875 he spent in Europe
Although he studied law at Columbia, receiving the degree of LL B in 1879, and was admitted to the bar, he had never practiced his profession. For a number of years he was connected with the New York Produce Exchange as the managing partner in the firm of R W. Forbes & Son, and in this con- nection spent almost two years in New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. He withdrew from the export business in 1907, and spent some months with a Harvard professor in exploration work in Mexico and lower California, visiting regions comparatively unknown to travelers, and also visited British Columbia. In 1910 he became purchasing agent for the Hospital Bureau of Standards and Supplies, organized at that time for the standardization and central purchasing of supplies for hospitals. During his lifetime this bureau developed until it served Yale in China, and Dr.~~Grenfeirs expeditions in Labrador, as well as fifteen New York hospitals, and many others, chiefly in the eastern part of the United States. Mr Forbes was a member of the Down Town and Century associations.
His death occurred in Chatham, N. J., June 29, 1921. Burial was in Oaklawn Cemetery, Fairfield, Conn.
He was married in Fairfield, June 25, 1885, to Rebecca Tappan Rowland, who was a student in the Yale School of the Fine Arts during 1880-81, and who died March 10, 1915. Mrs Forbes was the daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Tappan (Edwards) Rowland; a sister of Henry Edwards Rowland and Samuel Rowland, both members of the Class of 1871,and of
Amory E. Rowland (Ph.B. 1873); and a great-granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards. Their only child, Reba (Mrs. Howard M. Morse), survives. Mr. Forbes was a brother of the late Robert W. Forbes, Jr., a nephew of Benjamin Silliman (B.A. 1837) and the Rev. George P. Fisher, a graduate of Brown University in 1847, who received the honorary degree of M A. at Yale in 1867; a cousin of Benjamin Silliman, '70, George P. Fisher, '81, and Forbes Hawkes, '87; and an uncle of Henry Rowland