Unexplained pre-historic statue on Naushon Island.
Posted on 05/03/2004 7:40:35 AM PDT by Redcoat LI
Naushon Island
Naushon Island has been a Forbes family retreat for some time, where the opium trader John Murray Forbes and his family summered for more than a century. Sen. John Forbes Kerry and his first cousin Brice Lalonde summered there, and at another Forbes family estate in France, at Saint-Brieuc when he was growing up. The family owns the island through the J.M. Forbes Naushon Island Trust. Naushon island is several miles long, just off (SW of) Cape Cod in the Elizabeth Islands, and NW of Martha's Vineyard.
The island is owned by the family and they pay little or no property taxes as the use of the island is deemed agricultural by the local authorities.
Nashawena island may also be controlled by the family trust.
All of the Elizabeth Islands except Cuttyhunk are privately owned by the Forbes family.
Forbes family
In the United States, the Forbes family of China and Boston, of which John Forbes Kerry and John Murray Forbes are members, amassed a huge fortune in the China trade dealing in opium to the wealthier Chinese during the Opium Wars and engaging in other merchant banking, trading, and railroad investment projects around the world. Their ties to the opium trade (from Turkey, Ottoman Empire, Iraq, Iran and Afganistan) were so great, the Forbes family became known in China during the Opium War in the 19th century as the 'Opium Dynasty' or 'Poppy Dynasty' and also by a poetic turn of phrase: 'The House of Forbes - Rests on Water - Dreams of Opium'.
Born in France, John Murray Forbes entered the China trade at the behest of his Perkins uncles, and was mentored by the Chinese merchant Houqua who considered Forbes to be like a son. Following John Murray Forbes into China were several brothers and cousins, including Francis Blackwell Forbes, the great grandfather of John Forbes Kerry. The Forbes family lived and traded in China at first due to a family connection with the Perkins family. Later, some of the Forbes family sold their China trading interests to the Russell and Company, later associated with Yale's development and endowment.
Several of the Forbes family cashed out of their dealings in China after the Opium War, and reinvested in Europe and America. Some of the population growth of Chicago and Midwestern Plains states in the middle to late 19th century was due to John Murray Forbes' railroad projects in Michigan and Chicago. In 1879, William Forbes, son of John Murray Forbes, risked the fortune to financially back Alexander Graham Bell's telephone company, and become president of the company, a risk which paid off. Cameron Forbes used his wealth to become Governor General of the Philippines. His niece Ruth Forbes Paine Young tapped her Forbes family inheritance to finance the International Peace Academy. Her husband invented the Bell Helicopter used in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In a small way, Ruth Forbes Paine Young's son, Michael R. Paine, and his wife Ruth Paine, tapped their family wealth as a benefactor to Lee Harvey Oswald, whose wife Maria Oswald lived in their house as a family friend, and whose rifle was stored in the Paine's family garage. Many Forbes family members purchased estates in France and Massachusetts, and generally remain influential there, in local or national politics. John Forbes Kerry is a U.S. Senator and currently a candidate for President of the U.S. Though he is a beneficiary of several Forbes family trusts (c. 2002), Kerry has not worked in the private sector for Forbes family business interests and has devoted his life to a career in public service.
His first cousin, Brice Lalonde, an ecologist, is a French politician who was a candidate for [President] of France.
Until recently, the Museum of the American China Trade in Boston was curated by a Forbes great-grandson, Dr. H. A. Crosby Forbes, an expert on Chinese porcelain. The museum was a monument to the China merchants and the great wealth accruing to Boston created in the China and opium trade. The [renamed] Forbes House Charitable Trust now owns the Captain Forbes House Museum on Boston's South shore.
The Forbes family owns, through the family JM Forbes Naushon
Island Trust, named for the opium dealer John Murray Forbes, the private Naushon Island, part of the Elizabeth Islands NW of Martha's Vineyard and SW of Cape Cod.
Ruth Forbes (1903-1998) m. 1st George Lyman Paine Jr, m. 3rd Arthur M. Young, inventor of the Bell Helicopter; Ruth founded International Peace Academy and Forbes family fellows Cameron Paine Michael R. Painehttp://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/paine_m1.htm. b. June 25, 1928, NYC, m. Ruth Hyde Paine, Oswald family benefactors in whose garage family friend Lee Harvey Oswald stored rifle and in whose home Marina Oswald lived
Brice Lalonde, a French politician, who ran for President of France as the Green Party candidate in 1981 Rosemary Forbes Kerry, (b. Paris, October 27, 1913), m. to Richard Kerry There is no connection between the descendants of Archibald Forbes and the family that publishes Forbes magazine, which was founded by Bertie Forbes. However, Bertie Forbes, born in New Deer, Scotland is a descendant of the Forbes clan in Scotland.
Rumours that John Forbes Kerry, Presidential candidate and Gigilo is descended from the illegitamite offspring of Karl Marx and Rosa Luxembourg are yet to be disproven.
Sources
Life and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, ed. by Sarah Forbes Hughes, Two Volumes, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899.
An American Railroad Builder: John Murray Forbes, by Henry Pearson, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1911.
Forbes: Telephone Pioneer, by Arthur Pier, 1953.
Unexplained pre-historic statue on Naushon Island.
Taxes are for the "little people."
Sure. All self made men spend their youth yachting with John F. Kennedy, go to boarding school in Europe, prep schhool in Boston and have the connections and sponsors to buy a successful political career.
I didn't notice the training-wheels until the third or fourth time I looked at the pic.
Groin-Grabbingly funny!
In it's earliest stages,the China trade was mainly Luxury items such as Silk,fine porcelain,etc..
The Opium trade was conducted in China,so any trans-Atlantic Clipper trade was clean.
Most of these people are perfectly decent and some are good friends
I'm sure they are,I in no way meant to insinuate that all people of this background are corrupted by dirty money,I just wanted to point out that holier-than-thou John Kerry is.
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