“Never was such force, good meaning, good sense, good action, combined with such domestic lovely behavior, such modesty and persistent preference for others. Wherever he moved he was the benefactor…”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson of John Murray Forbes, Letters and Social Aims (1855)
John Murray Forbes (1813–1898) made his mark on our early urban community in a less conventional way than, for example, Abraham Lincoln Lewis, Telfair Stockton, or Wellington Cummer, whose physical presences loomed large in the development of downtown Jacksonville. His purchase of 500 acres of land from Miles Price, with Times Union editor and former Boston lawyer Edward M. Cheney, just south of Jacksonville in 1868, still, has sealed his name as a permanent fixture in our city’s history. Forbes and Cheney performed some land improvements and road-building, the first to plat Yellow Bluff, now known as Riverside.
According to the Forbes House Museum, John Murray Forbes was the third son of Margaret Perkins (1773–1856) and Ralph Bennet Forbes, who married in 1799 in Boston. Ralph Bennett (1804–1889) was the son of the Rev. John Forbes (1740–1783) and Dorothy Murray, who married in 1769, also in Boston, soon after the Rev. Forbes’s arrival from Florida. He had been posted from Scotland to the colonies in 1763, where he became the first Anglican clergyman licensed to officiate during the British period (1763–1783), followed by the Spanish period (1783–1821).
Sanborn Map of Riverside, Jacksonville 1913, volume 1, courtesy of the Jacksonville Public Library.
John Murray Forbes primarily resided in Milton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, in the family home with his wife Sarah Swain Hathaway and their six children. In 1833, Margaret Forbes Perkins, a widow by this time, commissioned architect Isaiah Rogers to build a Greek Revival-style mansion in Milton for her and her four daughters. The house was an engineering marvel for that era, with central heating and indoor plumbing and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. Four generations of the Forbes family lived in the house until 1962, which opened as a historic house museum in 1964.
(Left) Portrait of Robert Bennet Forbes, Lam Qua (Chinese, 1801-1860), c. 1830-45. (Right) Portrait of Margaret Perkins Forbes, artist and date unknown. Photos courtesy of the Forbes House Museum.
Early in his adult life, he was engaged in the family trade business as a supercargo in Canton, China, but returned to Boston in 1837 with a small fortune from a Cantonese tradesman named Hou Qua (whose portrait was known to hang in perpetuity in Forbes’s office) to invest in building a fleet of clipper ships and help to open the trade routes to the Far East. As one of the wealthiest men in the world, Hou Qua’s expansive property featured widely admired gardens–filled with ponds, stone
(Above) Portrait of Hou Qua, Lam Qua (Chinese, 1801-1860), 1840. (Left) Hou Qua’s Garden. Photos courtesy of the Forbes House Museum.
paths, bamboo, peacocks, standing rocks and rockworks, a promenade, potted flowers, dwarf trees, fruit trees, a river (perhaps fodder for Forbes’s later interest in arboriculture), and more, and he provided Forbes and other wealthy Western merchants with rare access to Canton beyond its walls. By 1846,
however, Forbes had joined the railroad bandwagon with some New England partners to found Michigan Central Railroad, where he served as president for nearly 10 years, followed by three years as president at Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. In 1881, Forbes had overseen 7,000-plus miles of railroad westward, confirming his status as a veritable railroad magnate.
In addition to the railroad, Forbes also managed J.M. Forbes & Co., an investment firm in Boston, which led to successful ventures in land and mining stock; enter Florida. Returning to his grandfather’s first outpost in the United States, Forbes sought political action in Jacksonville toward reconstruction after the Civil War in the late 1860s. Staunchly pro-Union in word and deed, Forbes secured
some Republican (anti-slavery) influence in the South by establishing The Union newspaper, since called The Florida Times Union.
“It was my theory that the whole of the St. John’s River, and the whole of the eastern section of Florida, was so much settled and frequented by Northerners, besides having about an equal population of blacks and whites, that it formed the surest State for the experiment of giving the blacks, not only the voting power which belonged to them, but also an asylum from any oppressive or discriminating laws.”
Unfortunately, the robust showing of “carpet-baggers” joined some unscrupulous Confederate sympathizers in the area that thwarted Forbes’s theory, as he describes in his Reminiscences, Volume 3 (1902). Nevertheless, he had purchased Yellow Bluff acreage with Cheney and, at about the same time, 20 acres of land with a small orange grove in St. Augustine west of the old fort for just under $2,000. In 1869, to calm his “uneasy spirit,” he took a steamer voyage from New York to Florida, which docked intermittently along the coast so that he was able to visit Fernandina, Palatka, St. Augustine,
the Everglades, and even the reefs at Bay Biscayan, Miami. According to his Reminiscences, he enjoyed the warm weather and lush plant and animal life foreign to New England: “The sea blue, the sand beach whiter than our Naushon beaches. Hardly any rocks, perhaps a ledge once in 20 or 30 miles.”
Forbes paid about $20 in gold per acre for the Yellow Bluff property, and at the writing of his Reminiscences, Volume 3, he had sold half and hoped for “getting $100,000 or more for what [remained].” While a financial motivation was behind his now-Riverside land investment–he had bought tracts of land in various other states over the course of his life to
turn a profit, Forbes was known as a man of strong character and judgment, just as a shrewd capitalist and financier extraordinaire. He used his accumulated wealth wisely, as a tool to propel causes dear to him, working behind the scenes to make a difference.
Paraphrasing Jacksonville University professor of literature and Riverside Remembered author George Hallam in the RAP Community Newsletter (1974–2006), Forbes was “only mildly interested in money,” quietly “smitten” with patriotism, using his astonishing resources and moral sense to work unselfishly for his country both in war and in peace. Even in childhood, Forbes was described by the headmaster of the Round Hill School in Northampton as a student of “uncommon worth.” Always a friend of the Freedmen, Forbes was anti-slavery “from the moment he heard Wendell Phillips give a speech following the murder of a [white abolitionist] newspaperman in Alton, Illinois, in 1837 [the same year Abraham Lincoln opened a law office in Springfield],” according to Hallam. Forbes was later an elector for Abraham Lincoln and served as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee during the administration of President Lincoln.
John Murray Forbes Park
Incidentally, Forbes also undertook the planting of tens of thousands of trees in and around his home in Milton and vacation home in Santa Barbara, as well as advocated for the preservation of thousands of trees already planted, protecting them from developers. Perhaps the concepts of transcendentalism and appreciation of nature espoused by his friend, poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, took root, so to speak, in Forbes’s mind. Emerson’s daughter Edith married Forbes’s son William, and the two families were close.
The significance of John Murray Forbes Park, then, is right in concert with the values of Forbes the man. This secret enclave of a riverfront park was created in 1993 when St. Vincent’s developed the end of King Street, and Riverside Avondale Preservation (RAP) led the effort to reserve that space for future use as a public park. Now, the park sits adjacent to the new Delores Barr Weaver Heart and Vascular Pavilion. Landscape architect Rick Pariani created early renderings of what this space could become with advocacy and investment on behalf of RAP
Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Murray Forbes with their first grandchild, Ralph Emerson Forbes, in 1868. Photo courtesy of Boston Magazine.
and the community. Since that time, RAP has collaborated with Ascension and the COJ Parks Department on a plan to reconstruct this park into an inviting public space that celebrates the bright spirit of John Murray Forbes and Riverside. In fact, $4,000 of the proceeds from the 2024 Yarden Tour contributed to trees planted by JaxParks, new sidewalks, and fabricated concrete seating, and local private donor Charitable Playground Solutions paid for the new masonry planter. The RAP Parks Committee donated the lettering on the new planter and will continue the activation of the space in the near future with yoga and other mindful activities.
Providing an outdoor environment that is pleasing, meditative, and complementary to the view of the St. Johns River, the park is an entry point to the existing pedestrian-friendly Riverwalk along the St. Vincent’s property that boasts some of the best views in town of the river and downtown Jacksonville. Local landscape architect Rick Pariani designed a clever layout that emphasizes a few key features, such as a clear sight line to the river as you walk King Street, large trees with ample shade for comfort and natural beauty, a small open lawn, and, finally, a meaningful tribute to John Murray Forbes and his beloved 500 acres we now call Riverside. Reaching beyond merely Forbes’s physical appearance, the tribute may embody one or more of the many great themes that characterize Forbes’s life and, thereby, the development of Riverside: neighborliness, friendship, hospitality, camaraderie, philanthropy, altruism, championship, initiative, resourcefulness, enthusiasm, and determination.
Fifth Annual Yarden Tour
RAP’s annual Yarden Tour, on which John Murray Forbes Park will be featured, returns on Saturday, May 17, 2025 (rescheduled from May 10 due to expected inclement weather), from 10 AM to 4 PM. This special event brings neighbors and businesses together to share the transformative nature of front yards, backyards, gardens, and landscapes that are sure to give inspiration and encourage budding gardening ideas to bloom. Tour admission includes access to several backyards with varying garden styles, some even featuring live music, refreshments, and activities. Flower gardens, vegetable gardens, native yards, and beautiful backyards make this tour a great way to spend a Saturday!
