[4] The following year he sailed to California, where he accepted a commission as "assistant adjutant-general, with the rank of major" under John Bidwell.
[5] He and a fellow officer left the Army in 1865 to return to the Eastern United States by land, with a side trip through Salt Lake City, where he met Brigham Young.
[6] In American Fork, Forbes met Nancy Dayton, whose stepfather, Isaac Cooper, ran a boarding house.
Harrington helped pass laws to enable the public school system Forbes envisioned.
[1] In 1866, Forbes married Nancy Dayton,[2] followed by his conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,[8] to which he was committed the remainder of his life.
Eventually he was arrested and detained in the penitentiary in Salt Lake City until he signed a document indicating his intention to consider himself married only to his first wife.
[14] When Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto ending polygamy, the Forbes returned to American Fork.
April 15, 1921 was designated Forbes Day, and the original plan for a dinner and social event turned into a true holiday, with businesses and schools closed.
Forbes thanked the residents for their love and returned it, then declared the meeting his funeral: that he was now ready to die and "face my Maker unafraid, and with joy in my heart".
[1] Forbes' grandson Paul Dayton Bailey wrote extensively about his grandfather in Grandpa Was a Polygamist (1960), which was later reprinted as Polygamy Was Better Than Monotony (1973).