Vincennes Sun-Commercial, 15 February 1929.

John H. Forbes‘ attendance at Raleigh, North Carolina’s Shaw University signals that he was African-American, and he is found in the institution’s 1874-75 catalogue as a student in the College Department.

However, Forbes is described as white in every record in which I found him in Vincennes, Indiana. Was he the unheard-of white student at Shaw in the 1870s? Or did he spend the rest of his life in Ohio passing?

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Stella May Forbes was born 24 August 1883 in Knox County, Indiana, to John W. Forbes and Anna T. Marsh.

In the 1900 census of Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana: farmer John Forbes, 52; wife Anna, 38; and children Stella, 16, Harry, 15, Anna, 13, Charles, 7, and John, 2.

In the 1910 census of Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana: farmer John H. Forbes, 58; wife Anna, 48; and children Harry B., 24, Anna, 23, Charles, 16, and Johnie, 11.

In the 1920 census of Vincennes, Knox County, Indiana: farmer John Forbes, 58; wife Anna, 58; and children Charley, 26, and Anna, 32.