Otis Peabody was born in 1910, and married Elise Peabody in 1938, having two children, Martha and Sherman. In the 1950s he turned Peabody Farms he inherited into a ranch where he intended to breed pine trees, being considered a bit crazy for this idea by the other inhabitants of Hill Valley. In 1955, a large metallic vehicle appeared in his barn, which his son Sherman believed to be a spaceship. Otis scared off the alien with some shotgun blasts, but it killed one of his pine trees by accident.