A Family Reunion, a Newspaper Dynasty and an Unexpected Discovery in New Rochelle’s Past

DUBLIN, IRELAND (October 25, 2026) — In August, I received an email from James C. “Jim” Forbes Jr. of Atlanta, Georgia, telling me that eight members of his family had gathered in New Rochelle in July for a reunion. He included a photograph of the family members and a brief account of their ancestors’ contributions to the city’s history.

I appreciated his reaching out, but I wasn’t immediately sure what to do with the information. Family reunions, even those involving families with deep roots in New Rochelle, aren’t generally the sort of stories I publish in Talk of the Sound. My reporting focuses primarily on local government, public schools, crime and public accountability. Besides, I had been traveling for much of the preceding month and returned to a substantial backlog of correspondence.

When I finally took a closer look at what Forbes had sent, however, I realized there was considerably more to the Forbes family than I had initially appreciated. Their history was closely intertwined with the development of newspapers in New Rochelle, a subject that naturally caught my attention as a journalist and publisher.

Jim’s great-grandfather, George Morris Forbes, was editor of the New Rochelle Pioneer, identified in the family history as the city’s first daily newspaper. His grandfather, Robert Lucas Forbes, founded the New Rochelle Daily Star, a predecessor of the Standard-Star, which would become one of New Rochelle’s principal newspapers for much of the 20th century. Another family member, T. Harold Forbes, acquired the Daily Star and helped establish the Standard-Star through a merger with the Evening Standard in 1923.

As the last remaining independent local news publisher in New Rochelle, I found this history particularly interesting. The Forbes family had helped establish and operate the newspapers that preceded my own work by generations. Although the technology, business models and methods of distributing news have changed dramatically, they were my predecessors in the profession of local journalism.

The family’s connections to New Rochelle extended beyond newspaper publishing. Thomas Hoctor, another relative, worked as sports editor of the Standard-Star and served as New Rochelle’s official city historian for nearly 50 years. The Forbes family was also involved in real estate development and other aspects of the city’s civic and cultural life.

I wanted to make sure I had the history right, so I contacted Barbara Davis, the Westchester County historian and former New Rochelle city historian. Davis confirmed the principal details of the family’s newspaper history and provided additional information about its members.

Among other things, Davis told me that Robert Lucas Forbes had published New Rochelle’s 250th anniversary journal and was involved in real estate development in the area. She also described T. Harold Forbes as a vaudeville performer who knew George M. Cohan, the famous American entertainer and playwright. According to a family account Davis had heard from Jeanette Forbes Hoctor, Harold helped bring Cohan to New Rochelle, possibly inspiring his musical 45 Minutes From Broadway. Davis cautioned that she was uncertain about that particular story, noting Cohan’s friendship with theatrical producer Marc Klaw, who lived in Rochelle Park.

The more I learned, the clearer it became that this was a family whose history intersected with several important chapters in New Rochelle’s development.

But one member of the family particularly captured my attention, and she wasn’t one of the newspaper editors.

Her name was Jeanne Claudet Forbes.

Jeanne was the wife of Robert Lucas Forbes, the founder of the Daily Star. According to the family history Jim provided, she had translated the original French Huguenot records of New Rochelle’s early settlers into English. That immediately raised questions for me. What records had she translated? Had her work ever been published? Did the original documents or her translations still exist somewhere?

I asked Davis about Jeanne, and she confirmed the story. Better still, she provided a copy of a March 23, 1995, Standard-Star article by Harold Meltzer describing Jeanne’s life and accomplishments. The article had appeared in connection with a program honoring Jeanne at the Thomas Paine Museum during Women’s History Month.

It described a remarkable woman, born in Paris and educated in both France and the United States, who had become an important figure in New Rochelle’s civic and cultural life. She had volunteered during both world wars, participated in numerous community organizations and worked in the family publishing and real estate businesses.

Her most enduring contribution, however, may have been her work preserving New Rochelle’s earliest municipal records.

In 1916, Jeanne published Records of the Town of New Rochelle, 1699–1828, a substantial volume containing transcriptions and translations of the town’s original handwritten records. The book was published by Paragraph Press under the authority of the City of New Rochelle’s Board of Estimate.

I subsequently located a digitized copy of the book and began examining it. The opening pages include the Pell deed associated with the establishment of New Rochelle, followed by a record of a town meeting dated Dec. 2, 1699, apparently the earliest recorded town meeting included in the collection. The volume reproduces original handwritten documents alongside their transcriptions and translations, providing a fascinating glimpse into the earliest years of the community.

The book also contains a certification by New Rochelle City Clerk Charles Kammermeyer, dated Aug. 15, 1916, attesting that the published records had been compared with the original manuscripts held by his office and were believed to be accurate.

What began as a passing reference in an email about a family reunion had led me to a woman whose work helped preserve the documentary foundations of New Rochelle’s history. Thanks in large part to Barbara Davis, I had discovered a story that deserved considerably more attention than I could give it in a few paragraphs about the Forbes family.

I decided Jeanne Claudet Forbes deserved an article of her own. That companion article examines her life, her historical work and the remarkable book she published more than a century ago. It also explains where readers can find the book, including a complete digitized edition available online and a copy held in the New Rochelle Public Library’s Local History Collection.

As for the reunion that started all of this, the eight members of the Forbes family who gathered in New Rochelle in July were Jackie, Kathy, Elizabeth, Carolyn, Barbara, Susie, Jim and Peggy. They are the children of James and Katherine Forbes, who raised their family in New Rochelle, and descendants of the newspaper publishers and other family members whose contributions helped shape the city’s history.

Jim also sent photographs connecting the family’s present with its past, including one of himself standing outside the surviving New Rochelle Pioneer building. For descendants returning to the city generations later, the old newspaper building remains a tangible connection to their family’s place in New Rochelle history.

I don’t ordinarily write about family reunions, and when Jim first contacted me, I certainly didn’t anticipate writing two articles. But sometimes a seemingly modest news tip leads somewhere unexpected.

In this case, it led me into the history of the newspapers that came before my own publication, introduced me to a family whose members helped chronicle New Rochelle for generations and, most unexpectedly, brought to my attention a woman who helped ensure that the city’s earliest written records would remain available to future generations.

I’m grateful to Jim Forbes for getting in touch and sharing his family’s history, and to Barbara Davis for helping me understand its significance. Without their contributions, I might never have discovered Jeanne Claudet Forbes or the remarkable work she left behind.

This article was prepared with the assistance of AI tools under the direction and editing of Robert Cox.

Have information about this story? Email robertcox@talkofthesound (preferred) or contact via WhatsApp: +353 089 972 0669.