Franklin

FORBES, Charles Spooner

Men of Vermont: Illustrated Biographical History of Vermonters & Sons of 
Vermont. Ullery. Brattleboro: Transcript Publishing Company, 1894, pp 141-142 
(portrait p 141)

Charles Spooner FORBES, of St. Albans [Franklin County, Vermont], was born 06 
August 1851 at Windsor [Windsor County, Vermont], son of Abner and Catherine 
FORBES, and removed to St. Albans in 1863. The public schools gave him his 
preliminary training, and resolving to become a journalist by profession, he 
commenced his newspaper career on the "St. Albans Transcript" at the age of 
seventeen; has been connected with various state papers for nearly twenty 
years; since 1879 the Vermont correspondent and state manager of the "Boston 
Journal." Mr. FORBES cast his first vote for President GRANT; was prominent 
in the Campaign Club of St. Albans in 1872; has acted as secretary and 
treasurer of the local Republican clubs afterward formed; was secretary of 
the Republican state convention of 1886; was a delegate and one of the 
secretaries of the national convention of Republican clubs held in New York 
City in 1887; made secretary of the Republican League of Vermont in 1888, and 
assisted in organizing one hundred and fifty campaign clubs. He was 
appointed captain and aid-de-camp on the brigade staff, Vermont National 
Guard, in 1886, and was a member of the staff of Governor DILLINGHAM, with 
the rank of colonel. Colonel FORBES has held many honorable positions in 
civil life, among them the secretaryships of the Vermont commission on the 
Washington centennial at New York, the State Press Association, the Vermont 
Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Vermont Historical 
Society, the Vermont League for Good Roads, and the state commission to the 
World's Columbian Exposition. He was elected president of the Vermont Press 
Association in 1893. In December 1889 he received the appointment of deputy 
collector of internal revenue for the Vermont Division, which office he held 
for four years. Episcopalian; member of St. Luke's Church, St. Albans; has 
been a vestryman, treasurer, and parish clerk, and also a delegate to several 
diocesan conventions of the church; was one of the notification committee 
appointed at the special diocesan convention in 1893 to inform Rev. Arthur C. 
A. HALL of Oxford, England, of his election to the Vermont Bishopric.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly