GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — They were two men without much in common, other than that they were living in America and wanted to be free.
Arthur Forbis was, like a lot of men in North Carolina, a Briton whose family came to America.
“Arthur was part of the wave of immigrants that came into this country, and record keeping was just terrible,” said Arthur’s descendant and former Greensboro Mayor John Forbis of his family as they came from Scotland. “They were used to getting kicked out of countries.”
Ishmael Titus was enslaved but ended up joining the Continental Army in place of the man who owned him. He used that time to fight for his freedom after the war. There is little known about the foot soldiers of the Revolutionary War and even less about men like Ishmael, but we do know that he lived to more than a hundred years old and, in the 19th century, applied for and got a military pension.
There is one painted portrait of Ishmael, and when his descendant, Solomon Titus, saw it, he thought:…