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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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FORBES, WILLIAM (1822-1857)

FORBES, WILLIAM, pharmacist; b. Miramichi, c1822, s/o Alexander Forbes and Deborah Darby; d. Chatham, 11 Aug 1857.

William Forbes, "chemist and druggist," was the son of a Miramichi merchant who died in April 1825, at age fifty-nine. In 1844 he took over a drug store which had been opened in Chatham three years earlier by Charles Marter. Marter was preceded at Chatham by the "apothecary" William Irvine, who advertised "fresh" drugs, tobacco, and spices for sale in 1827. He died in 1831, at age thirty-five. At Newcastle, Alexander Kirk, a somewhat more elderly man, started a drug store in 1828. He could not earn a living by selling drugs alone and was soon stocking everything from liquor to boots and shoes in his drug store. He persevered in this way until the 1850s and was Forbes's Newcastle counterpart, as he previously had been Irvine's.

Forbes conducted the Chatham store on his own until 1847, at which time he and an older brother, Kenneth B. Forbes, entered into partnership. The arrangement lasted until 1853, when Forbes & Co. was formed, with the Chatham businessman William J. Fraser as a third partner.

In the 1847-48 lecture season Forbes addressed the Mechanics' Institute on "Industry and Knowledge v. Indolence and Ignorance." In 1849 he was helping Davis P. Howe conduct the "Apollonian Circulating Library," which owned some 300 books. He was living at home with his widowed mother in 1851 and would appear not to have married. He died in 1857, at age thirty-five. Two months later Dr John Thomson took over operation of the Forbes drug store.

Sources

[d] tombstone (re. Alexander Forbes and family) / Fraser (C) Gleaner 30 Nov 1844, 4 May 1847, 18 Apr 1848, 7 Feb 1853, 15 Aug 1857, 24 Oct 1857; NB Courier 22 Jan 1831 (re. William Irvine); Stewart (re. Alexander Kirk)


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