He was one of the principal owners of the SS Savannah, which in 1819 became the first steamship in the world to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

[1] Scarbrough was born in Barnwell County, South Carolina, in 1776, the son of William Sr., a wealthy planter,[2] and Lucy Sawyer.

[3] The couple hosted James Monroe, the sitting fifth United States president, in 1819.

[1] The SS Savannah was not a success, and in November 1820, Scarbrough was in the midst of an "emotional and physical collapse".

He was interred in a vault in Savannah's Colonial Park Cemetery along with his wife, who survived him by thirteen years.