S.N. SCARBOROUGH

The following bio was taken from page 383 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Claudia Schuster

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

Milton Lee Scarborough, reared in Americus, Georgia, and educated in New York, came to Hunt County, Texas. There he and his wife, Mary Hart, had a family of ten children, Samuel Newt being next to the youngest of these. There were seven girls and three boys. S.N. was born in 1885, came to Rusk County, and in 1906 married Bessie E. Dorsey (1887-1959). On their eighty-acre farm in Grandview Community they were blessed with five girls and four boys, who in order of birth are: Mary Lee, Lamar, Bessie Lou, Henry N., Sudie Mae, William P., Louise, Sidney E., and Alyne.

The family was also blessed with a lot of work, as S.N. had many new ideas to try out on this farm. There were blackberries to be planted for making blackberry jam and peanuts for making peanut butter that was sold extensively in this area under the trade name of "Star Brand" and "Eat Well." S.N. built a peanut sheller that was patented in 1925, and as an article that follows notes, other machinery as well.

The youngest son of this family, Sidney, has recently made a producing gas well on his farm, which is not the first production, because back in 1944 an oil well was drilled by T.P. Cannon; and at that time, farming came to halt. However, oil wells have a tendency to dry up, and from 1965 to last year, the farming and gardening flourished again.

This article appeared in the Henderson Daily News, February 1, 1927.

"Peanuts Hold Local Spotlight As Top Crop—Another Great Industry" "If patience, perseverance and hard work bring a man success" the story begins, then Newt Scarborough will win over all obstacles.

For years he has preached peanuts to the people, of this county, has experimented with different varieties, has grown hundreds of carloads of them. He has always had faith in their commercial value, their local home value and as a feed crop that never fails. He has experimented with various kinds of machinery, spent hundreds of dollars trying to get the best results in shelling machines that work wonders.

But this is not all. He has established and now has in operation on his farm five miles north of town an up-to-date modern plant for the manufacture of peanut butter. But few people know it possibly, that such an institution or industry is in existence in this county—but it is a fact and Mr. Scarborough is turning out now 1,500 pounds of high grade peanut butter daily, or every day that his plant is in operation."

Regardless of the great "peanut discovery" of the time, in the same newspaper issue was a small story headed "Joiner Well Prepares to Spud in Soon."

Submitted by Lavelle Irwin Scarborough