Joel Scott, farmer, P. O. Arrow Rock. Mr. Joel Scott was born six miles east of Georgetown, Scott county, Kentucky. His father was also a native of Scott county, Kentucky, and his mother, whose maiden name was Hawkins, was a native of Mason county, Kentucky. His father was also a farmer before him, and moved to Missouriin 1832, stopping in Boone county, and moving to Saline county the next year purchasing 650 acres of land ten miles east of the present county seat. Joel, the fifth son, now lives at the old homestead, ten miles east of Marshall. He was only four years old when his parents came to Missouri, but still has an indistinct remembrance of coming from Kentucky in wagons. The family were in a carriage made in the Kentucky penitentiary, for which, with the harness, they paid $1,000. Mr. Scott, after the lapse of half a century, has still some remains of those harness. Joel was educated at the neighboring schools of Jonesboro and Arrow Rock, until the age of eighteen, when he assumed charge of the farm for his father. In 1857, at the age of twenty-one, he went to California and worked in the gold mines, and trading between Sacramento and the mines, in which he had good luck for over two years., when he returned home with a check on Page, Bacon & Co., St. Louis, for $6,000 over all expenses. Returned by the isthmus of Panama. Mr. Scott was married, in November, 1857, to Miss Nannie Townsend, daughter of A. S. Townsend, deceased of Cooper county. He has six living children, and is now a flourishing farmer and stock man, on the old Scott homestead, which he has enlarged to over 1,000 acres. Mr. Scott lost one of his eyes by the glancing of a nail which he was driving, striking him in the pupil.
