Notes for Stephen A. Ball: A. From "Colonial and Revolutionary Morris County", by Theodore Thayer; The Morris County Heritage Commission, 1975; by Compton Press Inc., Morristown. Library of Congress Call No F142.M28 T42
pg. 87 (1783). "...Soon Stephen Ball, probably a blacksmith, put a new axletree on Lewis's Wagon."
pg. 89. Sylvanus Seely's diary: "During the next few days he made trips to Newark Mountain and to somewhere else with Dr. Stephen Ball."
pg. 255. After one of his visits to Morristown {Colonel Sylvanus} Seely came home feeling sick but, after calling Dr. Stephen Ball, he soon felt better.
pg. 259 After a trip to Newark through knee-deep snow, {Colonel Sylvanus} Seely became ill. The doctor (perhaps Dr. Stephen Ball, husband of Seely's erstwhile girl friend) came and gave him some pills which, he noted with satisfaction, "worked me smartly."
B. From "American Origins: antecedents of Cynthia Laidlaw Gordon", by Cynthia Gordon, Easton, PA: Gordon, 1978. Librry of Congress Call No CS71 G66 1976
STEPHEN BALL 1749 - 1783
He was born in Newark, oldest son of Ezekiel and Mary Jones Ball, the third generation to live in the city his great-grandfather helped to found. He was known as Dr. Stephen Ball, engaged in the practice of medicine. What his formal education was is not known; medical training in that day consisted or apprenticeship to a doctor for a period of some six years. after which a man was considered ready for his own practice. As a side-line, Stephen also sold tickets for the Hanover, N. J. lottery.
Stephen was a young man with energy. In 1773 he advertised to sell his home on the "Passaick River on the main road from Morristown to Elizabeth-town" because he intended to move to "the Mississippi" the following fall. He described his property as two acres or more of fine land, a good orchard, a large and vary convenient dwelling-house forty-four feet in length and twenty-six feet in width, four rooms with fireplaces on each floor, and a large entry-way and kitchen. It had an excellent well of water that never failed, very handy to the kitchen. and a garden adjoining the house "as good as any in the country." Other attractive aspects were its location thirteen miles from Newark, two miles train from South-Hanover meeting" and a "gun-shot from a saw mill, a grist mill and a market.
Stephen's plans changed, partly because of the increasing political tension, and he never went to the Mississippi. On January 1, 1777. he enlisted in the Revolutionary army and was commissioned surgeon's mate in the first New Jersey Regiment, commanded at that time by the Rt. Hon. William Earl Sterling. Stephen was twenty-seven years old, married to Sarah Ross of Chatham, N. J. They probably had four small children then.
His first year in the army must have been rough on a young man used to living well by the standards of that day, who had probably never been more than twenty miles away from Newark before. In the spring his regiment was in Elizabeth, but later that year he probably took part in the disastrous battle of Brandywine, Pa., which led to the loss of Philadelphia to the British. A brilliant young French nobleman, the Marquis de Lafayette. also had a chance to prove his valor in this battle. Washington's troops withdrew to nearby Valley Forge, where they spent the winter shivering and starving. without any of the supplies an army needs. Men ate and slept in rude huts which they built of whatever lumber they could find on the spot. Some had to sleep in the open. As I write this, on a bitterly cold January day in Pennsylvania exactly 200 years later, watching the wind swirl the falling snow, it is possible to imagine some of the misery and despair those men must have felt.
Stephen was report "sick absent" in October, but returned to duty November 4. Again in December. he was reported sick. The farmers of the surrounding countryside gave the suffering men what food and clothing they could spare. Many troops simply disappeared from the camp site made their way to their homes for food and warmer clothing, then returned. Stephen was reported absent without leave in January, but returned in February; perhaps he went home to Newark. He survived the rest of the winter and left in the spring with troops that were better disciplined and in higher spirits, despite the winter ordeal, than they had been in the fall.
Stephen's regiment was back in Elizabethtown by August; there he remained through the winter of 1778-1779. He was "absent sick" again in February of 1779, this tine nearer hone. The British were occupying New York and Staten Island directly across Newark Bay from Elizabethtown. and Washington had set up winter quarters in Morristown, a few miles to the west, where he and his men spent an even more severe, but not quite so desperate a winter. General Von Steuben was giving invaluable assistance in turning ill-prepared and ill-equipped troops into a well disciplined army.
On the sixth of June, 1780, the British crossed Newark bay and attacked at Elizabeth Point. Intent on reaching Morristown and defeating General Washington there. The First New Jersey played an important part in stopping the British inside of two days and forcing then back to Staten Island. Stephen must have fought with great strength and determination because he and his comrades were meeting the British in the streets, on the bridges and in the fields that they knew well; it was territory where they had grown up.
This battle was a turning point in the war. Washington's army suffered few casualties and the British, in addition to loss of men. suffered defeat in having to return in a very short tine to New York. But for Stephen the victory was tragic as well because his brother Samuel, three years younger, in the same company, was wounded. Despite Stephen's ministrations, Samuel died in August.
Stephen's military service ended in 1781 when he resigned with the rank of surgeon. He had only two more years to spend with his wife and four children; he died at the age of thirty-four.
His children were: Frederick (married in Georgia, died in Savannah). Fannie (married Stephen Roff 1800), George (married Elizabeth Price of Elizabethtown) and Mathilda (married Hobart Littell).
C. From Sam, Genie, and Michele / 70324.341@compuserve.com the following said to be taken from various DAR lineage books.
Stephen Ball, (1749-83), served as surgeon and was with the army at Valley Forge. His brothers, Samuel and Thomas, were killed during the war, but Edward and David survived although barbarously treated by the Tories. Their ancestral home, "Tuscan Hall" is still a famous relic of Colonial times.
From Unknown: The "Charles Carroll Gardiner Collection"; Gardner's early work, completed before 1911, is on 32 microfilms at the Family History Library. (Also owned by NEHGS). A separate section includes about 30,000 cards that index individuals listed in New Jersey records. Original papers at NJHS.
7 Oct 1780 Act of N.J. Legislature for defraying sundry incidental charges: For use of Dr. Stephen Ball attending Samuel Ball & Nicholas Passell, privates in the militia of Essex Co., wounded in June last.
1784, Jan 5. Ball, Stephen, of Morristown, Morris Co. Int. Administrators- Sarah Ball and Henry Allen. Fellowbondsman- Enos Crowell; all of said place. Witness- John Donalon. Lib. M, p. 215
Children of Stephen A. Ball and Sarah Ross are:
+Frederick Ball, b. 1771, New Jersey29, d. August 19, 1820, Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia30, 31.
Dr. Stephen A. Ball (b. October 21, 1749, d. December 22, 1783)
Notes for Stephen A. Ball: