History of Rainsboro, (Highland County) Ohio United States of America

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Joseph Benson Foraker, senator, was born in Rainsboro, Highland county, Ohio, July 5, 1846; son of Henry S. and Margaret R. Foraker. His first American ancestors emigrated from Devonshire, England, about 1740, and finally settled at Bombay Hook near Smyrna, Del. His grandfather removed to Ohio in 1820. His parents were farmers with a family of eleven children, and could give the son but a limited education in the district school. At the age of fifteen he became a clerk at Hillsboro, Ohio, in the office of his uncle, who was auditor of Highland county. On July 14, 1862, he enlisted in the 89th Ohio regiment; was in the army of the Cumberland, and participated in the battles of 1863-65, incident to the advance of Sherman's army to and through Georgia, and thence to Washington. He was promoted sergeant, Aug. 26, 1862; 1st lieutenant. March 14, 1864, and brevetted captain March 19, 1865, "for effective services during the campaigns of Georgia and North Carolina." He was aide-de-camp to Gen. Henry W. Slocum in the march to the sea and through the Carolinas. He spent the years 1866-67 at Wesleyan university, Delaware, Ohio; and was graduated at Cornell university in 1869, in the first class graduated from that institution. He then went to Cincinnati, where he was admitted to practise law Oct. 14, 1869. He was judge of the Cincinnati superior court, 1879-82; an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Ohio in 1883; was elected governor in 1885; reelected in 1887 and defeated again in 1889. He was an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. senator in 1892 and was elected to that office, Jan. 15, 1896, to succeed Calvin S. Brice, taking his seat March 4, 1897. He was chairman of the committee to examine the several branches of the civil service, and a member of the committees on foreign relations, on Pacific railroads, to establish the University of the United States, and on transportation routes to the seaboard. He was a delegate to the Republican national conventions of 1884, 1888, 1892 and 1896, being chairman of the Ohio delegation in 1884 and 1888, and chairman of the committee on resolutions in 1892 and 1896, nominating William McKinley for President in 1896. On May 23, 1898, his father, Henry S. Foraker, died at Hillsboro, Ohio. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Marietta college in 1886.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Rainsboro, (Highland County) Ohio

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