Ezekiel Ball (b. June 05, 1721, d. December 26, 1804)
Ezekiel Ball (son of Thomas Ball and Sarah Davis) was born June 05, 1721 in Newark, New Jersey, and died December 26, 1804 in North Farms, Essex County, New Jersey. He married Mary Jones.
Notes for Ezekiel Ball: A. The following is taken from "American Origins: antecedents of Cynthia Laidlaw Gordon", by Cynthia Gordon, Easton, PA: Gordon, 1978. Librry of Congress Call No CS71 G66 1976
EZEKIEL BALL 1721 - 1804
He was the sixth child, fifth son born to Thomas and Sarah Davis Ball, who lived in Newark. There were four younger brothers and two younger sisters.
As a young man of twenty-five, he was listed with the "Supream Court" of Essex Country for "rioting" for the second time, May term of 1746. The court records spell his name "Esekill", and make note of the fact that his fellow offenders are, among others, Nathaniel. Timothy and Aaron Ball (his older brothers) and Amos Harrison. I once taught in an Amos Harrison elementary school in Livingston, N. J., certainly not known to be named for a troublemaker. Another "dissenter," Abraham Pierson, was in even more trouble and had to leave Newark. He went to Connecticut where he later became president of Yale College.
The difficulty these young men found themselves in was probably caused by the Jersey Proprietors appointed by the Crown, who tried to charge the colonists rent for the land they had previously bought. Protesting these practices was defined as "rioting." Not only did these young men protest, but they broke open the jails and freed those who had been imprisoned on the complaints of the Proprietors. Local magistrates were not inclined to deal harshly with young men who rioted for this reason.
Ezekiel was a carpenter. His father Thomas owned property a few miles outside the city; Ezekiel inherited this property at Thomas' death. There he built his homestead, named Tuscan Hall. It was in a district known as Newark Farms, now the southern part of South Orange, on Springfield Avenue. The hall was built about 1769, and since Ezekiel and his wife had seven living children when they first occupied this house, it must have been large enough to justify the name. It became famous. Ezekiel came to be known by the name of his place and was commonly called "Tuscan" Ball. The hall was still in use during the first part of this century -- not as a residence, but as a local government office. Although it has since been torn down, the name is perpetuated by Tuscan Road which runs through the area where the old farm was.
Ezekiel seems to have owned a farmstead jointly with his brother Nathaniel before Tuscan Hall was built. A newspaper advertisement in 1769 described "a fine plantation, containing 167 acres of choice good land, lying seven miles from Elizabeth-town, in Springfield; with a good double house, barn and sawmill, and a fine situation for a grist-mill, well watered and timbered, with a good orchard, out-houses, etc." It was signed "Nathaniel and Ezekiel Ball," who asserted that the title was good and that "easy payments will be taken, with interest."
Perhaps Ezekiel found the roads around his new home rougher than those of the older town of Springfield. An article in a New York weekly newspaper tells of news coming by way of Newark about an "ingenious mechanic," Ezekiel Ball, who "invented a new machine for leveling the roads with great Expedition; it is made in the Form of a Triangle, with a small Expense, and is drawn by Horses; Cutting off ridges and filling up the Ruts to Admiration, and deserves to be highly recommended to the Public; if any Gentleman is desirous or knowing in what Manner it is made, the Model may be now seen at his House.' I wonder how many people came to see it to make one of their own to smooth their rutty roads.
Ezekiel seems to have had a deep interest in public affairs. The Newark town records show that he was a surveyor of highways. From 1769 to 1770 he was overseer of the poor. This last office was less complicated and demanding then than it is now. Receipts of the dog tax were used for the poor; these needy people were "farmed out" -- housed on farms where they worked for their keep. The overseers arranged for all this. They were also responsible for seeing that the children of the poor were sent to school by the farmers.
In addition to his other enterprises, Ezekiel kept up a brisk trade in livestock. He bred cows, and bred and trained blooded horses for carriage and saddle He also bought, sold and rented properties in the vicinity of Newark.
Ezekiel was married to Mary Jones of Sag Harbor, Long Island; many English Protestants had recently come from there to settle in New Jersey. They had eleven children. Edward (born 1748) lived less than a year, Stephen (born 1749, died 1783, married Sarah Ross), Prussia (born 1750, died 1813, married Sam Alling, a jeweler in Newark). Samuel J. (born 1752, died 1780, married Hannah Gardner), Jane, (born 1754, died 1765), Edward (born 1756, died 1815, married Esther Mulford), Timothy (born 1758, died 1828, married first Mary Crowell, second Mary Edwards Resch), Mary (born 1761, died 1813, married first William Miller, second Nathaniel Taylor), William (born 1763, died 1765), William 2nd (born 1765, died 1804, married Phebe Hatfield) and Oliver (born 1768, died 1776).
Ezekiel died at the age of eighty-three, having outlived seven of his children and at least one of his grandchildren. His will leaves one-third of his real estate to his wife (she lived to be eighty-four), the riding sulky. one cow and the cupboard and furniture for one room. He provided for his four surviving children: Timothy, half his real estate; Edward, interest from $150 yearly during his life, the principal to be divided among his children at his death; to Phebe, widow of his son William, rents and profits from the remainder of his real estate; to daughters Prussia and Mary (whom he nicknamed "Polly"), $75 in trust "so their husbands may not have use of the money." A grandson and two great-grandsons are left $62.50 each when they come of age.
Ezekiel personified the vigorous, enterprising generation that followed the pioneers who established the widely separated cities of the early eighteenth century. His contemporaries did not live with the extreme hardships of their forebears; more of their energy could be employed in improving the quality of their lives, in developing their skills in a trade, in seeking better land to occupy and in building more comfortable houses. Ezekiel was a man of property, a man of energy and inventiveness -- not afraid to speak out against injustice. It was he, and others like him, who raised the generation that revolted against the English king and made possible the founding of a new nation on the land where they had established their homes.
B. From : Joseph J. Felcone / jfelcone@mail.idt.net Post Office Box 366, Princeton, New Jersey 08542 Tel (609) 924-0539 / Fax (609) 924-9078
I'm looking for the dates (years only) of Ezekiel Ball, of Tuscan Hall, who I'm sure would be a well known individual to a Ball genealogist. I'm compiling a bibliography of N.J. printing through 1800 and there is a unique copy of an undated but 1775-1779 stud broadside issued by Elihu Spencer of Trenton for a colt at Ezekiel Ball's in Newark Farms; I just need Ball's dates for a footnote. It's also curious why Spencer, a Trenton minister, would advertise a stud of Ball's, but this is beyond my scope.
A "stud broadside" is a broadside advertising .... uh oh, maybe I should begin by defining a broadside, which is something printed on one side of an unfolded sheet; what today would be called a poster. They were used, as they are today, for announcements, etc. Large ones are commonly called broadsides, smaller ones handbills.
Stud advertisements, very common in late 18th and early 19th cent. newspaper advts. but also found in broadsides, simply advertise that my horse, with such and such fancy pedigree, is available to mate with your horse, at so many pounds the season, or so many shillings "the single leap."
Ezekiel Ball seems to have been something of a horse breeder, as he appears in the 1770s newspapers a couple of times advertising his horses. The broadside whose entry I was preparing the other day seems to have been owned by a Trenton minister but was being pastured and available for mating at Ball's in Newark. A bit unusual, but not for me to worry about.
C. From: The Maplewood, NJ WWW page
CHIEF TUSCAN - 1600
The first inhabitants of the valley which in now Maplewood were a tribe of American Indians known as the Leni-Lenape. The translation the their name is most appropriate; it means "original men." They were a small peaceful group, sometimes known as the Delawares, who were part of the Indian culture of the Eastern Woodlands.
Primarily they were hunters; the forests abounded with deer, beaver, and smaller animals. Their dependence on wild game caused them to live in small groups rather than in large tribal villages. Nuts and wild fruit were also gathered, and they raised a few crops of corn and beans. Their houses were made of bent branches covered with strips of elm bark. This type of wigwam was quite serviceable but when a family moved on in search of better hunting, it was no great loss to abandon it. Baskets were made from strips of wood or cane, and boxes were formed from birch bark sewn together at the edges with grass. Wooden bowls were hollowed out of logs with fire, and sleeping and floor mats were woven from reeds or bark. They made a primitive type of pottery from the local clay which turned gray after being fired in their camp fires. Many tall jars have been found which seems to indicate that they preferred this style.
There is a local legend that two Indian chiefs had a contest for a girl whom each wished to marry. It was agreed that the winner would take the girl and, to insure peace, would move away. Chief Tuscan was successful, took his bride, and moved to the little ravine behind the present day site of Tuscan School parallel to Tuscan Road. He lived there happily for several years and after he died he was buried nearby. To this day the site of his grave has never been discovered.
Probably there were never more than ten or twelve Indians living in this valley at any one time. The early white settlers had little trouble with them as they moved westward following the wild game displaced by the farms. In 1678 Essex County, including Maplewood, was bought by the English from the Indians for 50 double hands of powder, 100 bars of lead, 20 axes, 20 coats, 10 guns, 20 pistols, 10 kettles, 10 swords, 4 blankets, 4 barrels of beer, 10 pairs of breeches, 50 knives, 20 horses, 1850 fathoms of wampum, 6 anklers of liquor, and 3 troopers' coats. The few remaining members of the Leni-Lenape tribe now live on reservation in Oklahoma.
Ezekiel Ball (b. June 05, 1721, d. December 26, 1804)
Notes for Ezekiel Ball: