My Genealogy Hound

SCARBOROUGH, JOEL H., farmer; Sec. 7; P. O. Payson; was born Nov. 12, 1824, in Brooklyn, Windham county, Ct. His parents, Joel and Lucretia (Smith) Scarborough, were born, lived, and died in that county. He early evinced a love of books, and at the age of ten he was reading Latin and studying algebra and geometry. When fourteen years of age he came west to Adams county, prior to which he had procured a good academic education. He arrived in the village of Payson in the fall of 1838, and for three years worked in the employ of his uncle, Deacon A. Scarborough, then went to Hudson, Ohio, the seat of Western Reserve College, remained two years, a part of the time attending college and the rest studying at home. Returning to Payson in 1843, he again worked for his uncle until he was 21 years old. Having purchased the wild land on which he now resides, when he was fifteen, he then went to improving it; boarded with Mr. Edward Seymour for several years. In November, 1849, married Miss Julia A. Seymour, born in West Hartford, Ct., who died in January, 1856, leaving one child, which survived her a few months. The following fall he married his present wife, Harriet Spencer, daughter of Moses Spencer, of West Hartford Ct.; her mother was Julia Flagg. Mrs. S. was born Jan. 1, 1820. Two children blessed their union, one living, Henry F. Scarborough, born Nov. 7, 1869. Mr. S. united with the Congregational church at the age of seventeen. He was elected clerk of the church in Payson, when nineteen years of age, and has been re-elected each succeeding year since. He has served as Superintendent of their Sabbath school since Jan. 1, 1868; has for many years been one of the Board of Trustees of the church. For four consecutive years he was chairman of the County Sabbath-school Convention, and was chosen by the Congregational Association, composed of some twenty churches, to represent them in the National Council of Churches, held in Boston, in June, 1865. He has been very active in educational interests, and it is due to his persistent zealous efforts and those of a few others of like enterprise that Payson has her present fine school building and prosperous school. He owns 245 acres of farming lands in Payson township, worth $60 per acre, 160 in Burton, worth $40, eighty acres in Fall Creek, worth $45, and 950 in Pike county, on the Mississippi bottom, worth $10 per acre.