FOOTE. FORBES.
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— wholly dependent on relatives, and began 10 earn his own living at ten years of age, when he left the North Salem public school, and his school education was ended. lie first went to attend in the shop of an uncle in Salem, and later in Boston, return- ing to Salem again for employment in a book-store. Soon after this, he was on the point of following the sea for a livelihood, and had in fact shipped as cabin-boy for a scaling voyage in the Arctic regions, when the captain who had engaged him broke the agreement in order to take a larger and st longer boy, and thereby diverted the current of his life. CALEB FOOTE. He then found employment in the office of the "Salem Gazette ;" this was in t S i 7 , since which time he has worked his way up in the same establishment from apprentii e to proprietor and editor, having, at the date of withdrawal (October, r888), been in active service in the office seventy-one years, and sixty-three of them as senior proprietor and editor, Mr. Foote also established a small weekly paper, to which he gave the name of " The Salem Mercury," and it became an import- ant addition to the influence of the office, being subsequently enlarged, and its title changed to that of "The Ksscx County Mercury." The "Gazette" had a hard struggle at the outset of its career, but for more than a hundred years it has been regularly issued under the successive direction of two per- sons — Thomas C. Cushing from 1786 to 1823, and Caleb Foote from 1S25 to Octo- ber, 1888. For the brief space of twenty- seven months after Mr. Cushing's with- drawal. Mr. Ferdinand Andrews had the place of senior proprietor, being succeeded in that capacity by Mr. Foote, who in 1854 was joined by Nathaniel A. Horton, as junior editor, who now publishes the "Gazette and Mercury" under the firm name of N. A. Horton & Son. Such public duties as the engrossing labors of an editor would permit came early to Mr. Foote. He served on the school committee in 1830 and '31, and was a member of the House of Representatives in 1833 and '34, declining a re-election. In January, 1S38, he was elected by the Legislature a member of the executive council, and again in [839, declining a subsequent re-election. In May, 1841, he was appointed postmaster of Salem, which position he retained three years. In 1S67 he took a vacation for a trip to Europe. Mr. Foote was married, October 2, 1835, to Mary Wilder, the daughter of Hon. Daniel Appleton White, judge of probate for Kssex county. She died December 24, 1S57. Of their six children, three are sur- viving : Rev. Henry V. Foote and Arthur Foote, now of Boston, and Mrs. Mary V., wife of John B. Tileston, of Milton. FORBES, Robert Bennett, son of Ralph Bennett and Margaret (Perkins) Forbes, was born in Jamaica Plain, Sep- tember 18, 1804. His family on both sides originated in Scotland. His paternal grandfather was Rev. John Forbes, of Milton, who married Dorothy Murray, of that town. In 1807 his parents removed to Boston. Two years later his father went to Europe. January 17, 1S11, the family embarked in the topsail schooner " Midas," bound for Marseilles. After de- tention by British war vessels, they arrived in safety, and were joined by the husband and father. Here the children remained at a boarding-school, while the parents traveled thirteen months in Europe and Africa. On their return they went to Bor- deaux, and remained five months. May 13, 1813, they embarked in an American schooner for home, sailing under a letter of marque. They were captured by a P.ritish cruiser, taken into Corunna, Spain. Later on they took passage in the brig
