by Matthew Urtz
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Madison County Courthouse featured a number of courthouse paintings of prominent judges and attorneys that practiced in the county. During a renovation of the present courthouse in the 1960s the portraits were removed from public view and memory. Recovered portraits are being repaired when possible for permanent display after the future courthouse renovations are completed.
However, all will be displayed as part of our 2016 Archives Day on this fall. Over the course of the next few months, we will feature articles on each of the judges whose images will be displayed. Today we will speak about Judge Gerrit Forbes.
Gerrit Forbes was born near Clockville to Issac and Abigail (Sayles) Forbes May 30, 1836.
According to several accounts, his mother Abigail named her son after noted abolitionist, philanthropist and politician Gerrit Smith of Peterboro, who she attended school with. Forbes attended local schools before studying law with Benjamin Franklin Chapman starting in 1860, gaining his admission to the bar in 1863. In 1862 he married Miss Ellen Brooks of Clockville. They had one son, Claude, who was an attorney, and a daughter Maud Kellogg, whose husband Daniel was an editor for the New York Sun.
Forbes moved his family to Canastota around 1873 to after setting up a law practice in the village a few years earlier. In 1871 Forbes was elected District Attorney of Madison County; he was re-elected in 1873. In 1884 he became the head of the law firm of Forbes, Brown and Tracy in Syracuse. Forbes won the 1887 election for Supreme Court Justice as a Republican, and was reelected on 1901, after being nominated on both the Republican and Democratic ticket. He served in that role until his death in September of 1906.
Forbes served as president of the Canastota Board of Education for 12 years and by all accounts was a prominent and popular citizen in the village. He was also a member of the Masons and Odd Fellow fraternal organizations in the community.
Upon his death, multiple members of the bar spoke including future New York Supreme Court Justice Michael Kiley who stated:
“It is very fitting that adjournment be taken at this time as an expression of our honor and respect for Judge Forbes. He was just closing his nineteenth year of eminent and satisfactory services upon the bench of one of the greatest courts of this state or any other state or country. His friends among the bar as well as of other residents of the County of Madison feel keenly the sad ending of a career that started amid humble circumstances and by his own unaided efforts reached the eminence that Judge Forbes did.”
Archives Day 2016 will be Oct. 11 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Madison County Office Building #4. Besides the portraits, court cases, notes and other items from the men in the paintings will be on display.
For more information about Madison County history my contact me via phone is 315-366-2453 or email matthew.urtz@madisoncounty.ny.gov. Don’t forget to like Madison County, NY History on Facebook and visit our website www.madisoncounty.ny.gov/historian/home. Matthew Urtz is the Madison County Historian.
Works Cited
- “Death of Judge Forbes.” The Oneida Dispatch. 28 September, 1906
- “Judge Forbes is Dead.” The Evening Courant. 25 September 1906.
- “Judge Kiley’s Tribute.” The Cazenovia Republican. 27 September 1906.
- “Justice Forbes Death.” The Evening Courant. 25 September 1906.
- “Justice Forbes is Dead.” The Cazenovia Republican. 27 September 1906.
- Smith, John E. Madison County: Our County and its People. The Boston History Company, Publishers. 1890
- Tompkins, Brownell Fitch. 1806-1906 Biographical Sketches of the Madison County Bench and Bar. Madison County Historical Society. 1911.