Charles E. Forbes

Charles Edward Forbes (August 25, 1795 – February 13, 1881)^[1] was a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1848. He was appointed by Governor George N. Briggs.

Born in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts, Forbes graduated from Brown University in 1815. He was admitted to the bar in 1818. He was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1848, and resigned a year later.^[2]

Forbes was a Mason and Master of the Lodge in 1819 and 1822. He served as a trustee of the Northampton Insane asylum.^[1]

He died in Northampton, Massachusetts on February 13, 1881.^[1] In his will, he bequeathed $220,000 to the town of Northampton for construction, maintenance, and supply of a public library, with the condition that "no minister of religion is to have anything to do with the management of the institution".^[3] The Forbes Library opened in 1894, three years after Forbes' death.^[4]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "Obituary - Charles Edward Forbes". The Boston Post. February 15, 1881.
^ Davis, William T. (1900). History of the Judiciary of Massachusetts: Including the Plymouth and Massachusetts Colonies, the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, and the Commonwealth. Boston: Boston Book Co. p. 190.
^ "The will of Judge Charles E. Forbes", Boston Evening Transcript (February 17, 1881), p. 2.
^ "Library History – Forbes Library". Retrieved August 2, 2024.