Joseph Benson Foraker was born on July 5, 1846, on a farm about north of Rainsboro, Ohio, in Highland County. He was the son of Henry and Margaret (Reece) Foraker, and one of 11 children, of whom nine reached adulthood. Henry Foraker was the first in his line (said to descend from Devon in England, though with German and Scots-Irish influences) to spell his name that way; his father, named John, had spelled it as "Fouracre", or sometimes as "Foreacer". David Reece, Joseph's maternal grandfather, was of English descent and had come from Grayson County, Virginia, to become a miller and farmer.