Josiah Crosby was born November 24, 1816 in Dover, New Hampshire and moved with his family to Atkinson, Maine in 1820.
A graduate of Foxcroft Academy and Bowdoin College with the class of 1835, he was admitted to the bar in Piscataquis County in 1838.
After practicing law with several different partners in Dover, Exeter and Kenduskeag, he settled in Dexter in 1845 and remained there for the rest of his life as one of the town’s leading citizens, representing that town in the Maine House in 1857, 1863 and 1865, before serving in the State Senate from 1867 to 1868. He was elected President of the Maine Senate in 1868.
An orator of some note, Crosby’s speeches on issues of the day and eulogies at the funerals of departed friends received widespread publication in the newspapers of the time.
He was an incorporator of the Dexter Railroad project and a director of the First National Bank in Dexter, as well as the Moderator of every Dexter town meeting for twenty-five years.
Crosby was another Whig turned Republican and it is interesting to note at this point how singularly unsuccessful, with a few exceptions, was the Whig party in Maine politics but how many Whigs held high political office as Republicans.