THE BALL FAMILY IN VIRGINIA
The first of the family of Ball to come to Virginia was William
Ball, who settled in Lancaster County in 1650. He was the son of
the attorney of Lincoln's Inn. He emigrated, with other cavaliers
because of the overthrow of the royal house and the persecution of
its adherents.
Before this time one John Washington, an Englishman and a loyalist,
had settled in Westmoreland. He became a man of influence in
the colony, rising rapidly from major to colonel, justice of
Westmoreland, and member of the House of Burgesses; accepting
positions under the Commonwealth, as did others of King Charles's
adherents; doing their duty under the present conditions, and
consoling themselves by calling everything--towns, counties, rivers,
and their own sons--after the "Martyred Monarch"; and in rearing
mulberry trees and silkworms to spin the coronation robe of purple
for the surely coming time of the Restoration.
John Washington married three times,--two Annes and one
Frances,--and, innocently unconscious of the tremendous importance
to future historians of his every action, he neglected to place
on record the date of these events. In his day a woman appeared
before the public only three times,--at her baptism, marriage, and
death. But one of Colonel Washington's wives emerges bravely from
obscurity. A bold sinner and hard swearer, having been arraigned
before her husband, she was minded to improve her opportunity; and
the Westmoreland record hath it that "Madam Washington said to ye
prisoner, 'if you were advised by yr wife, you need not acome to
this passe,' and he answered, having the courage of his convictions,
'---- ---- my wife! If it were to doe, I would do it againe.'"
And so no more of Madam Washington! This trouble had grown out of
what was characterized as "ye horrid, traiterous, and rebellious
practices" of a young Englishman on the James River, whose only
fault lay in the unfortunate circumstance of his having been born
a hundred years too soon. Bacon's cause had been just, and he was
eloquent enough and young and handsome enough to draw all men's
hearts to himself, but his own was stilled in death before he could
right his neighbors' wrongs.
And now, the Fates that move the pieces on the chess-board of
life ordained that two prophetic names should appear together to
suppress the first rebellion against the English government. When
the Grand Assembly cast about for loyal men and true to lay "a Levy
in ye Northern Necke for ye charges in Raisinge ye forces thereof
for suppressing ye late Rebellion," the lot fell on "Coll. John
Washington and Coll: W^m. Ball," the latter journeying up from his
home in Lancaster to meet Colonel Washington at Mr. Beale's, in
Westmoreland.
Colonel Ball's Lancaster home was near the old White Chapel
church, around which are clustered a large number of strong, heavy
tombstones which betoken to-day "a deep regard of the living for the
dead."
Almost all of them are inscribed with the name of Ball. In their
old vestry books are stern records. A man was fined five thousand
pounds of tobacco for profane swearing; unlucky John Clinton, for
some unmentioned misdemeanor, was required four times to appear on
bended knees and four times to ask pardon. As late as 1727 men were
presented for drunkenness, for being absent one month from church,
for swearing, for selling crawfish and posting accounts on Sunday.
"And in addition to above," adds Bishop Meade, "the family of Ball
was very active in promoting good things," as well as zealous in the
punishment of evil. Overt acts--swearing, fishing on Sunday, absence
from church--could easily be detected and punished. But how about
drunkenness? There are degrees of intoxication. At what point was it
punishable?
An old Book of Instructions settled the matter. "Where ye same
legges which carry a Man into a house cannot bring him out againe,
it is Sufficient Sign of Drunkennesse."
The descendants of William Ball held good positions in the social
life of the colony. Their names appear in Bishop Meade's list of
vestrymen, as founders and patrons of the Indian schools, and
fourteen times in the House of Burgesses. They intermarried with
the leading families in Virginia; and the Balls, in great numbers,
settled the counties of Lancaster, Northumberland, Westmoreland,
and Stafford. They are not quoted as eminent in the councils of the
time, or as distinguished in letters. That they were good citizens
is more to their credit than that they should have filled prominent
official positions; for high offices have been held by men who were
not loyal to their trusts, and even genius--that beacon of light in
the hands of true men--has been a torch of destruction in those of
the unworthy.
They, like their English ancestors, bore for their arms a lion
rampant holding a ball, and for their motto _Cælumque tueri_, taken,
as we have said, from these lines of Ovid:--
"Os homini sublime dedit, cælumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus."
The rampant lion holding the ball appears on an armorial document
belonging to the first emigrant. On the back of this document are
the following words, written in the round, large script of those
days, which, whatever it left undone, permitted no possible doubt of
the meaning it meant to convey:--
"The Coat of Arms of Colonel William Ball, who came from England
about the year 1650, leaving two sons--William of Millenbeck [the
paternal seat] and Joseph of Epping Forest--and one daughter,
Hannah, who married Daniel Fox.... Joseph's male issue is
extinct."[2]
[2] Horace Edwin Hayden in _William and Mary Quarterly_, Vol. iii,
p. 74.
George Washington was the grandson of this Joseph Ball through his
youngest daughter Mary. She was born at Epping Forest, in Lancaster,
Virginia, in 1708, and "not as is persistently stated by careless
writers on Nov: 30th 1706--a year before her parents were married."