Joseph Edward Badger Jr. was born October 10 1848 in Payson Illinois. His father Joseph E. Badger Sr. came from a Massachusetts family of seafaring people and his mother Rachel Sarah Van Vorhees from a Dutch family living in Pennsylvania. When Joseph Jr. was a year old his parents moved to Quincy Illinois and in 1858 removed to Kansas settling in Bellemont Doniphan county on November 10.