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.