Joseph Benson Foraker (July 5, 1846 – May 10, 1917) was the 37th Governor of Ohio from 1886 to 1890 and a Republican United States Senator from 1897 until 1909.Foraker was born in rural Ohio in 1846, and enlisted at age 16 in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He fought for almost three years, attaining the rank of captain. After the war, he was a member of Cornell University's first graduating class, and became a lawyer.