While Abner's census listings note only "U.S." for his parents' birthplaces, the listing for his younger brother Byron D. Ballard (1822-93) has their father born in North Carolina and their mother in South Carolina. Most census records note Abner's birth state as Ohio (though the 1880 & 1900 list Illinois), consistent with the birth states of his older brothers/cousins Bartholomew (c.1805) and John (c.1814). Byron, however, was born farther west, in Morgan County, Indiana; a younger brother, William, was also born in Indiana, in 1826.
Abner was first married in Ripley County, in the Ozark Mountains of southwest Missouri, on Nov. 26, 1839, to Rebecca Bailes; this is the same county where an “Auer Ballard” was enumerated in the next year's federal census. In the 1850 federal census, Abner & Rebecca had 3 children (born c.1840-46), all listed as born in Iowa (indicating a move northward into that state soon after their late-1839 marriage), though later censuses listed Wisconsin for the older two (indicating the move to Iowa wasn’t until later). Other sources consistently list 2nd son Byron (named after his paternal uncle) as having been born in Iowa on Oct. 15, 1846, indicating a move from either Wisconsin or Missouri to Iowa by that date, even though Abner himself may not have been there at the time of the baby’s birth, since the 1846 Fremont Expedition had left Iowa the previous spring:
In his "The Overland Stage Road," Porterville [Evening] Reporter 40, 107 (Nov. 4, 1947), Sect. 3, pg. 19, Ina H. Steiner recounts how the 5,300-foot pass named after U.S. explorer Joseph R. Walker (who crossed it west-east in April 1834) was first was publicized "back East" by John C. Frémont, who crossed it in 1844, just after Walker recrossed it (east-west in Nov. 1843) and established the route as one of the easier (and future most-travelled) wagon trails to California, and was used from 1858-61 by the Butterfield Overland Stage Company. Steiner’s 1947 article notes: "Among the men who joined Fremont and later settled in Tulare County were Abner Ballard, scout, ancestor of the Ketchams, Hills, O'Quinns, and others; Byron Ballard, scout, father of Mrs. Chas. Hodges, Mrs. Geo. Childers, and Mrs. Fannon Ellis ..." [Expedition records yet to be checked; "scouts" were not considered part of the army, in military records.]
If Abner & Byron BALLARD did serve as scouts in California during or before the Mexican-American War, they had returned to eastern Iowa by the time of the 1850 census, when they were living near Richland, Bellevue Township, Jackson County. Abner was then a widow with 3 children; his 1st wife Rachel had died within the previous three years; her youngest son Byron (born 1846) is listed in a portion of the 1890 federal census for hearing-impaired ("deaf" by that era's custom) people -- one of the few parts of that census to survive the 1921 fire -- with the note that his mother “died when Byron was a baby”.
The widower Abner was still living in Jackson County, Iowa, when he was married (a few weeks before his 35th birthday) to a 33-year-old widow, Mary Ann (Dunham) HAMLIN, on Feb. 3, 1854. The family is listed in Bellevue Township, Jackson County on July 3, 1854, in the Iowa state census. Within two years, however, they had moved about 200 miles southwest, to south-central Iowa – almost on the Missouri border. Abner, his new wife, her parents and some of her younger half-siblings are listed in the 1856 Iowa state census in Hamilton Township, Decatur County, Iowa. Abner's wife Mary Ann's parents and youngest siblings would remain in Decatur County for many years thereafter; her father Justus DUNHAM (1804-81) is buried there.
Abner & his brother Byron and their respective families, however, soon moved to California, presumably lured by their time there a decade earlier. They made the journey of over 1,700 miles in about 1856-57, based on the birth states listed in the 1870 federal census for Abner & Mary’s children (son William was born c.1855-56 in Iowa but their daughter Eliza was born c.1857-58 in California) and nephews born in California in c.1856-57. One family recollection was that they had come by covered wagon to Marysville, but Abner & family appear in the 1860 census in San Jose, Santa Clara Co., CA., where their hearing-impaired son Byron was later registered in a school for deaf children from 1862-66.
Abner appears in a 1866 draft-registration record (when his occupation was listed as farmer) and as early as 1867 in land-sale records – and brother-in-law J.B. DUNHAM as early as 1865 – in today’s Glenn County, west of the Sacramento River in what was then northern Colusa County. Abner & family are listed in the 1870 federal census in Monroe Township, west of Princeton (a town on the west bank of the Sacramento River between Colusa and Butte Cities], then-Colusa/now-Glenn County.
Meanwhile, by 1867 Abner's younger brothers Byron & William had moved over 300 miles southeast to Tulare County. Abner & family joined them by 1874, when he registered to vote, his occupation now listed as "stock raiser" (cattle) and residence near Farmersville, east of Visalia. Sadly, the family suffered the loss of their youngest sons in a probable diptheria epidemic (based on records of other children's deaths at that time) in the spring of 1878. Their burials in Deep Creek Cemetery northeast of Farmersville are the first recorded there for the Ballards.
Abner's occupation in the 1879 Tulare County voter registry was "sheep man" with his residence in Tipton, about 20 miles south of Farmersville. The 1880 census has the family living in Plano (20 miles east of Tipton and now part of Porterville), with Abner back to being a farmer (as he still was in his 1884 voter listing). The 1884 record, however, has Abner living in Saucelito, a now-defunct hamlet 8 miles southeast of Tipton and 8 miles west of Terra Bella. Saucelito hadn't existed at the time of the 1879 registry, so he may have returned to the same property he'd lived on 5 years earlier. The 1888 Tulare County business directory listed Abner in Belleville, another now-defunct hamlet 6 miles east of Pixley. Abner's residence was still listed as Saucelito in the 1890 & '92 voter records, then as Pixley Post Office in 1896 & 1900; Pixley was 7 miles to the west, so this could have been a substitution for Saucelito, where Abner is again listed in the 1898 voter registry -- all probably the same property.
Abner's probate records note that he had been forced to take out a mortgage on Aug. 22, 1898 on their farm described as located 7 miles east of Pixley, the promissary note for which of $2,166.66 was due (with interest of $83.00) in 3 years; the amount owed as per Jan. 9, 1902 was $2,249.66. In early December, 1901, the farm property was valued at between $2,200 & $3,000. The 1900 census lists Abner & wife living near son Justus & family back over in Plano (now part of Porterville), indicating that Justus may have taken over his father's first property in Tulare County (from back in the late-1870s).
Abner is described in the 1892 & 1896 registries as 5’ 8 or 9” tall, dark or light complexion, blue eyes, and grey hair.
Abner's brother Byron died in 1893 and was buried in the same Deep Creek Cemetery where Abner's 2 young sons had been buried in 1878. Abner became ill in the late summer of 1901, and was seen 12 times between Sept. 7 & Nov. 30 (at a cost of $17.50 per visit) by a Porterville doctor who gave him two prescriptions in mid-November. Abner did not recover, however, and died on Dec. 2, 1901 at age 82, and was buried on Jan. 4, 1902 in Deep Creek Cemetery. His estate was extensive, appraised in Sept. 1901 (presumably when he made out his will) at $4,740.00 (including $1,740.00 in personal property), though it appraised slightly lower just after his death, at $4,157.10 (including real estate valued at $2,240). His heirs received various farm equipment, livestock and farm animals, household items and the remaining cash after the $2,250 mortgage was paid off. (See 3rd-great-grandson Randy Baxter for a detailed listing of his estate.)
Abner is known to have sired 13 known children (3 from his 1st marriage, 10 from his 2nd):
Rachel Ballard (c.1840 -- after 1850)
John Hardwick BALLARD (c.1842 -- after 1870)
Byron BALLARD (1846 -- 1928)
Emma Sarah (Ballard) HILL (1854-1908)
William Budd BALLARD (1856-c.1920s)
Eliza Iantha (Ballard) KETCHUM (c.1857 – before 1901)
Justus Dunham BALLARD (1859-1943)
Catherine Malissa “Kitty (Ballard) HATCH (1863-1948)
Mary Louise (Ballard) QUINN (c.1864 – after 1901)
Harriet Ballard (1867-97)
James BALLARD (1874-78)
Sankey BALLARD (1876-78)
Kate Ballard (1878 – before 1900)
Abner was first married in Ripley County, in the Ozark Mountains of southwest Missouri, on Nov. 26, 1839, to Rebecca Bailes; this is the same county where an “Auer Ballard” was enumerated in the next year's federal census. In the 1850 federal census, Abner & Rebecca had 3 children (born c.1840-46), all listed as born in Iowa (indicating a move northward into that state soon after their late-1839 marriage), though later censuses listed Wisconsin for the older two (indicating the move to Iowa wasn’t until later). Other sources consistently list 2nd son Byron (named after his paternal uncle) as having been born in Iowa on Oct. 15, 1846, indicating a move from either Wisconsin or Missouri to Iowa by that date, even though Abner himself may not have been there at the time of the baby’s birth, since the 1846 Fremont Expedition had left Iowa the previous spring:
In his "The Overland Stage Road," Porterville [Evening] Reporter 40, 107 (Nov. 4, 1947), Sect. 3, pg. 19, Ina H. Steiner recounts how the 5,300-foot pass named after U.S. explorer Joseph R. Walker (who crossed it west-east in April 1834) was first was publicized "back East" by John C. Frémont, who crossed it in 1844, just after Walker recrossed it (east-west in Nov. 1843) and established the route as one of the easier (and future most-travelled) wagon trails to California, and was used from 1858-61 by the Butterfield Overland Stage Company. Steiner’s 1947 article notes: "Among the men who joined Fremont and later settled in Tulare County were Abner Ballard, scout, ancestor of the Ketchams, Hills, O'Quinns, and others; Byron Ballard, scout, father of Mrs. Chas. Hodges, Mrs. Geo. Childers, and Mrs. Fannon Ellis ..." [Expedition records yet to be checked; "scouts" were not considered part of the army, in military records.]
If Abner & Byron BALLARD did serve as scouts in California during or before the Mexican-American War, they had returned to eastern Iowa by the time of the 1850 census, when they were living near Richland, Bellevue Township, Jackson County. Abner was then a widow with 3 children; his 1st wife Rachel had died within the previous three years; her youngest son Byron (born 1846) is listed in a portion of the 1890 federal census for hearing-impaired ("deaf" by that era's custom) people -- one of the few parts of that census to survive the 1921 fire -- with the note that his mother “died when Byron was a baby”.
The widower Abner was still living in Jackson County, Iowa, when he was married (a few weeks before his 35th birthday) to a 33-year-old widow, Mary Ann (Dunham) HAMLIN, on Feb. 3, 1854. The family is listed in Bellevue Township, Jackson County on July 3, 1854, in the Iowa state census. Within two years, however, they had moved about 200 miles southwest, to south-central Iowa – almost on the Missouri border. Abner, his new wife, her parents and some of her younger half-siblings are listed in the 1856 Iowa state census in Hamilton Township, Decatur County, Iowa. Abner's wife Mary Ann's parents and youngest siblings would remain in Decatur County for many years thereafter; her father Justus DUNHAM (1804-81) is buried there.
Abner & his brother Byron and their respective families, however, soon moved to California, presumably lured by their time there a decade earlier. They made the journey of over 1,700 miles in about 1856-57, based on the birth states listed in the 1870 federal census for Abner & Mary’s children (son William was born c.1855-56 in Iowa but their daughter Eliza was born c.1857-58 in California) and nephews born in California in c.1856-57. One family recollection was that they had come by covered wagon to Marysville, but Abner & family appear in the 1860 census in San Jose, Santa Clara Co., CA., where their hearing-impaired son Byron was later registered in a school for deaf children from 1862-66.
Abner appears in a 1866 draft-registration record (when his occupation was listed as farmer) and as early as 1867 in land-sale records – and brother-in-law J.B. DUNHAM as early as 1865 – in today’s Glenn County, west of the Sacramento River in what was then northern Colusa County. Abner & family are listed in the 1870 federal census in Monroe Township, west of Princeton (a town on the west bank of the Sacramento River between Colusa and Butte Cities], then-Colusa/now-Glenn County.
Meanwhile, by 1867 Abner's younger brothers Byron & William had moved over 300 miles southeast to Tulare County. Abner & family joined them by 1874, when he registered to vote, his occupation now listed as "stock raiser" (cattle) and residence near Farmersville, east of Visalia. Sadly, the family suffered the loss of their youngest sons in a probable diptheria epidemic (based on records of other children's deaths at that time) in the spring of 1878. Their burials in Deep Creek Cemetery northeast of Farmersville are the first recorded there for the Ballards.
Abner's occupation in the 1879 Tulare County voter registry was "sheep man" with his residence in Tipton, about 20 miles south of Farmersville. The 1880 census has the family living in Plano (20 miles east of Tipton and now part of Porterville), with Abner back to being a farmer (as he still was in his 1884 voter listing). The 1884 record, however, has Abner living in Saucelito, a now-defunct hamlet 8 miles southeast of Tipton and 8 miles west of Terra Bella. Saucelito hadn't existed at the time of the 1879 registry, so he may have returned to the same property he'd lived on 5 years earlier. The 1888 Tulare County business directory listed Abner in Belleville, another now-defunct hamlet 6 miles east of Pixley. Abner's residence was still listed as Saucelito in the 1890 & '92 voter records, then as Pixley Post Office in 1896 & 1900; Pixley was 7 miles to the west, so this could have been a substitution for Saucelito, where Abner is again listed in the 1898 voter registry -- all probably the same property.
Abner's probate records note that he had been forced to take out a mortgage on Aug. 22, 1898 on their farm described as located 7 miles east of Pixley, the promissary note for which of $2,166.66 was due (with interest of $83.00) in 3 years; the amount owed as per Jan. 9, 1902 was $2,249.66. In early December, 1901, the farm property was valued at between $2,200 & $3,000. The 1900 census lists Abner & wife living near son Justus & family back over in Plano (now part of Porterville), indicating that Justus may have taken over his father's first property in Tulare County (from back in the late-1870s).
Abner is described in the 1892 & 1896 registries as 5’ 8 or 9” tall, dark or light complexion, blue eyes, and grey hair.
Abner's brother Byron died in 1893 and was buried in the same Deep Creek Cemetery where Abner's 2 young sons had been buried in 1878. Abner became ill in the late summer of 1901, and was seen 12 times between Sept. 7 & Nov. 30 (at a cost of $17.50 per visit) by a Porterville doctor who gave him two prescriptions in mid-November. Abner did not recover, however, and died on Dec. 2, 1901 at age 82, and was buried on Jan. 4, 1902 in Deep Creek Cemetery. His estate was extensive, appraised in Sept. 1901 (presumably when he made out his will) at $4,740.00 (including $1,740.00 in personal property), though it appraised slightly lower just after his death, at $4,157.10 (including real estate valued at $2,240). His heirs received various farm equipment, livestock and farm animals, household items and the remaining cash after the $2,250 mortgage was paid off. (See 3rd-great-grandson Randy Baxter for a detailed listing of his estate.)
Abner is known to have sired 13 known children (3 from his 1st marriage, 10 from his 2nd):
Rachel Ballard (c.1840 -- after 1850)
John Hardwick BALLARD (c.1842 -- after 1870)
Byron BALLARD (1846 -- 1928)
Emma Sarah (Ballard) HILL (1854-1908)
William Budd BALLARD (1856-c.1920s)
Eliza Iantha (Ballard) KETCHUM (c.1857 – before 1901)
Justus Dunham BALLARD (1859-1943)
Catherine Malissa “Kitty (Ballard) HATCH (1863-1948)
Mary Louise (Ballard) QUINN (c.1864 – after 1901)
Harriet Ballard (1867-97)
James BALLARD (1874-78)
Sankey BALLARD (1876-78)
Kate Ballard (1878 – before 1900)
While Abner's census listings note only "U.S." for his parents' birthplaces, the listing for his younger brother Byron D. Ballard (1822-93) has their father born in North Carolina and their mother in South Carolina. Most census records note Abner's birth state as Ohio (though the 1880 & 1900 list Illinois), consistent with the birth states of his older brothers/cousins Bartholomew (c.1805) and John (c.1814). Byron, however, was born farther west, in Morgan County, Indiana; a younger brother, William, was also born in Indiana, in 1826.
Abner was first married in Ripley County, in the Ozark Mountains of southwest Missouri, on Nov. 26, 1839, to Rebecca Bailes; this is the same county where an “Auer Ballard” was enumerated in the next year's federal census. In the 1850 federal census, Abner & Rebecca had 3 children (born c.1840-46), all listed as born in Iowa (indicating a move northward into that state soon after their late-1839 marriage), though later censuses listed Wisconsin for the older two (indicating the move to Iowa wasn’t until later). Other sources consistently list 2nd son Byron (named after his paternal uncle) as having been born in Iowa on Oct. 15, 1846, indicating a move from either Wisconsin or Missouri to Iowa by that date, even though Abner himself may not have been there at the time of the baby’s birth, since the 1846 Fremont Expedition had left Iowa the previous spring:
In his "The Overland Stage Road," Porterville [Evening] Reporter 40, 107 (Nov. 4, 1947), Sect. 3, pg. 19, Ina H. Steiner recounts how the 5,300-foot pass named after U.S. explorer Joseph R. Walker (who crossed it west-east in April 1834) was first was publicized "back East" by John C. Frémont, who crossed it in 1844, just after Walker recrossed it (east-west in Nov. 1843) and established the route as one of the easier (and future most-travelled) wagon trails to California, and was used from 1858-61 by the Butterfield Overland Stage Company. Steiner’s 1947 article notes: "Among the men who joined Fremont and later settled in Tulare County were Abner Ballard, scout, ancestor of the Ketchams, Hills, O'Quinns, and others; Byron Ballard, scout, father of Mrs. Chas. Hodges, Mrs. Geo. Childers, and Mrs. Fannon Ellis ..." [Expedition records yet to be checked; "scouts" were not considered part of the army, in military records.]
If Abner & Byron BALLARD did serve as scouts in California during or before the Mexican-American War, they had returned to eastern Iowa by the time of the 1850 census, when they were living near Richland, Bellevue Township, Jackson County. Abner was then a widow with 3 children; his 1st wife Rachel had died within the previous three years; her youngest son Byron (born 1846) is listed in a portion of the 1890 federal census for hearing-impaired ("deaf" by that era's custom) people -- one of the few parts of that census to survive the 1921 fire -- with the note that his mother “died when Byron was a baby”.
The widower Abner was still living in Jackson County, Iowa, when he was married (a few weeks before his 35th birthday) to a 33-year-old widow, Mary Ann (Dunham) HAMLIN, on Feb. 3, 1854. The family is listed in Bellevue Township, Jackson County on July 3, 1854, in the Iowa state census. Within two years, however, they had moved about 200 miles southwest, to south-central Iowa – almost on the Missouri border. Abner, his new wife, her parents and some of her younger half-siblings are listed in the 1856 Iowa state census in Hamilton Township, Decatur County, Iowa. Abner's wife Mary Ann's parents and youngest siblings would remain in Decatur County for many years thereafter; her father Justus DUNHAM (1804-81) is buried there.
Abner & his brother Byron and their respective families, however, soon moved to California, presumably lured by their time there a decade earlier. They made the journey of over 1,700 miles in about 1856-57, based on the birth states listed in the 1870 federal census for Abner & Mary’s children (son William was born c.1855-56 in Iowa but their daughter Eliza was born c.1857-58 in California) and nephews born in California in c.1856-57. One family recollection was that they had come by covered wagon to Marysville, but Abner & family appear in the 1860 census in San Jose, Santa Clara Co., CA., where their hearing-impaired son Byron was later registered in a school for deaf children from 1862-66.
Abner appears in a 1866 draft-registration record (when his occupation was listed as farmer) and as early as 1867 in land-sale records – and brother-in-law J.B. DUNHAM as early as 1865 – in today’s Glenn County, west of the Sacramento River in what was then northern Colusa County. Abner & family are listed in the 1870 federal census in Monroe Township, west of Princeton (a town on the west bank of the Sacramento River between Colusa and Butte Cities], then-Colusa/now-Glenn County.
Meanwhile, by 1867 Abner's younger brothers Byron & William had moved over 300 miles southeast to Tulare County. Abner & family joined them by 1874, when he registered to vote, his occupation now listed as "stock raiser" (cattle) and residence near Farmersville, east of Visalia. Sadly, the family suffered the loss of their youngest sons in a probable diptheria epidemic (based on records of other children's deaths at that time) in the spring of 1878. Their burials in Deep Creek Cemetery northeast of Farmersville are the first recorded there for the Ballards.
Abner's occupation in the 1879 Tulare County voter registry was "sheep man" with his residence in Tipton, about 20 miles south of Farmersville. The 1880 census has the family living in Plano (20 miles east of Tipton and now part of Porterville), with Abner back to being a farmer (as he still was in his 1884 voter listing). The 1884 record, however, has Abner living in Saucelito, a now-defunct hamlet 8 miles southeast of Tipton and 8 miles west of Terra Bella. Saucelito hadn't existed at the time of the 1879 registry, so he may have returned to the same property he'd lived on 5 years earlier. The 1888 Tulare County business directory listed Abner in Belleville, another now-defunct hamlet 6 miles east of Pixley. Abner's residence was still listed as Saucelito in the 1890 & '92 voter records, then as Pixley Post Office in 1896 & 1900; Pixley was 7 miles to the west, so this could have been a substitution for Saucelito, where Abner is again listed in the 1898 voter registry -- all probably the same property.
Abner's probate records note that he had been forced to take out a mortgage on Aug. 22, 1898 on their farm described as located 7 miles east of Pixley, the promissary note for which of $2,166.66 was due (with interest of $83.00) in 3 years; the amount owed as per Jan. 9, 1902 was $2,249.66. In early December, 1901, the farm property was valued at between $2,200 & $3,000. The 1900 census lists Abner & wife living near son Justus & family back over in Plano (now part of Porterville), indicating that Justus may have taken over his father's first property in Tulare County (from back in the late-1870s).
Abner is described in the 1892 & 1896 registries as 5’ 8 or 9” tall, dark or light complexion, blue eyes, and grey hair.
Abner's brother Byron died in 1893 and was buried in the same Deep Creek Cemetery where Abner's 2 young sons had been buried in 1878. Abner became ill in the late summer of 1901, and was seen 12 times between Sept. 7 & Nov. 30 (at a cost of $17.50 per visit) by a Porterville doctor who gave him two prescriptions in mid-November. Abner did not recover, however, and died on Dec. 2, 1901 at age 82, and was buried on Jan. 4, 1902 in Deep Creek Cemetery. His estate was extensive, appraised in Sept. 1901 (presumably when he made out his will) at $4,740.00 (including $1,740.00 in personal property), though it appraised slightly lower just after his death, at $4,157.10 (including real estate valued at $2,240). His heirs received various farm equipment, livestock and farm animals, household items and the remaining cash after the $2,250 mortgage was paid off. (See 3rd-great-grandson Randy Baxter for a detailed listing of his estate.)
Abner is known to have sired 13 known children (3 from his 1st marriage, 10 from his 2nd):
Rachel Ballard (c.1840 -- after 1850)
John Hardwick BALLARD (c.1842 -- after 1870)
Byron BALLARD (1846 -- 1928)
Emma Sarah (Ballard) HILL (1854-1908)
William Budd BALLARD (1856-c.1920s)
Eliza Iantha (Ballard) KETCHUM (c.1857 – before 1901)
Justus Dunham BALLARD (1859-1943)
Catherine Malissa “Kitty (Ballard) HATCH (1863-1948)
Mary Louise (Ballard) QUINN (c.1864 – after 1901)
Harriet Ballard (1867-97)
James BALLARD (1874-78)
Sankey BALLARD (1876-78)
Kate Ballard (1878 – before 1900)
Abner was first married in Ripley County, in the Ozark Mountains of southwest Missouri, on Nov. 26, 1839, to Rebecca Bailes; this is the same county where an “Auer Ballard” was enumerated in the next year's federal census. In the 1850 federal census, Abner & Rebecca had 3 children (born c.1840-46), all listed as born in Iowa (indicating a move northward into that state soon after their late-1839 marriage), though later censuses listed Wisconsin for the older two (indicating the move to Iowa wasn’t until later). Other sources consistently list 2nd son Byron (named after his paternal uncle) as having been born in Iowa on Oct. 15, 1846, indicating a move from either Wisconsin or Missouri to Iowa by that date, even though Abner himself may not have been there at the time of the baby’s birth, since the 1846 Fremont Expedition had left Iowa the previous spring:
In his "The Overland Stage Road," Porterville [Evening] Reporter 40, 107 (Nov. 4, 1947), Sect. 3, pg. 19, Ina H. Steiner recounts how the 5,300-foot pass named after U.S. explorer Joseph R. Walker (who crossed it west-east in April 1834) was first was publicized "back East" by John C. Frémont, who crossed it in 1844, just after Walker recrossed it (east-west in Nov. 1843) and established the route as one of the easier (and future most-travelled) wagon trails to California, and was used from 1858-61 by the Butterfield Overland Stage Company. Steiner’s 1947 article notes: "Among the men who joined Fremont and later settled in Tulare County were Abner Ballard, scout, ancestor of the Ketchams, Hills, O'Quinns, and others; Byron Ballard, scout, father of Mrs. Chas. Hodges, Mrs. Geo. Childers, and Mrs. Fannon Ellis ..." [Expedition records yet to be checked; "scouts" were not considered part of the army, in military records.]
If Abner & Byron BALLARD did serve as scouts in California during or before the Mexican-American War, they had returned to eastern Iowa by the time of the 1850 census, when they were living near Richland, Bellevue Township, Jackson County. Abner was then a widow with 3 children; his 1st wife Rachel had died within the previous three years; her youngest son Byron (born 1846) is listed in a portion of the 1890 federal census for hearing-impaired ("deaf" by that era's custom) people -- one of the few parts of that census to survive the 1921 fire -- with the note that his mother “died when Byron was a baby”.
The widower Abner was still living in Jackson County, Iowa, when he was married (a few weeks before his 35th birthday) to a 33-year-old widow, Mary Ann (Dunham) HAMLIN, on Feb. 3, 1854. The family is listed in Bellevue Township, Jackson County on July 3, 1854, in the Iowa state census. Within two years, however, they had moved about 200 miles southwest, to south-central Iowa – almost on the Missouri border. Abner, his new wife, her parents and some of her younger half-siblings are listed in the 1856 Iowa state census in Hamilton Township, Decatur County, Iowa. Abner's wife Mary Ann's parents and youngest siblings would remain in Decatur County for many years thereafter; her father Justus DUNHAM (1804-81) is buried there.
Abner & his brother Byron and their respective families, however, soon moved to California, presumably lured by their time there a decade earlier. They made the journey of over 1,700 miles in about 1856-57, based on the birth states listed in the 1870 federal census for Abner & Mary’s children (son William was born c.1855-56 in Iowa but their daughter Eliza was born c.1857-58 in California) and nephews born in California in c.1856-57. One family recollection was that they had come by covered wagon to Marysville, but Abner & family appear in the 1860 census in San Jose, Santa Clara Co., CA., where their hearing-impaired son Byron was later registered in a school for deaf children from 1862-66.
Abner appears in a 1866 draft-registration record (when his occupation was listed as farmer) and as early as 1867 in land-sale records – and brother-in-law J.B. DUNHAM as early as 1865 – in today’s Glenn County, west of the Sacramento River in what was then northern Colusa County. Abner & family are listed in the 1870 federal census in Monroe Township, west of Princeton (a town on the west bank of the Sacramento River between Colusa and Butte Cities], then-Colusa/now-Glenn County.
Meanwhile, by 1867 Abner's younger brothers Byron & William had moved over 300 miles southeast to Tulare County. Abner & family joined them by 1874, when he registered to vote, his occupation now listed as "stock raiser" (cattle) and residence near Farmersville, east of Visalia. Sadly, the family suffered the loss of their youngest sons in a probable diptheria epidemic (based on records of other children's deaths at that time) in the spring of 1878. Their burials in Deep Creek Cemetery northeast of Farmersville are the first recorded there for the Ballards.
Abner's occupation in the 1879 Tulare County voter registry was "sheep man" with his residence in Tipton, about 20 miles south of Farmersville. The 1880 census has the family living in Plano (20 miles east of Tipton and now part of Porterville), with Abner back to being a farmer (as he still was in his 1884 voter listing). The 1884 record, however, has Abner living in Saucelito, a now-defunct hamlet 8 miles southeast of Tipton and 8 miles west of Terra Bella. Saucelito hadn't existed at the time of the 1879 registry, so he may have returned to the same property he'd lived on 5 years earlier. The 1888 Tulare County business directory listed Abner in Belleville, another now-defunct hamlet 6 miles east of Pixley. Abner's residence was still listed as Saucelito in the 1890 & '92 voter records, then as Pixley Post Office in 1896 & 1900; Pixley was 7 miles to the west, so this could have been a substitution for Saucelito, where Abner is again listed in the 1898 voter registry -- all probably the same property.
Abner's probate records note that he had been forced to take out a mortgage on Aug. 22, 1898 on their farm described as located 7 miles east of Pixley, the promissary note for which of $2,166.66 was due (with interest of $83.00) in 3 years; the amount owed as per Jan. 9, 1902 was $2,249.66. In early December, 1901, the farm property was valued at between $2,200 & $3,000. The 1900 census lists Abner & wife living near son Justus & family back over in Plano (now part of Porterville), indicating that Justus may have taken over his father's first property in Tulare County (from back in the late-1870s).
Abner is described in the 1892 & 1896 registries as 5’ 8 or 9” tall, dark or light complexion, blue eyes, and grey hair.
Abner's brother Byron died in 1893 and was buried in the same Deep Creek Cemetery where Abner's 2 young sons had been buried in 1878. Abner became ill in the late summer of 1901, and was seen 12 times between Sept. 7 & Nov. 30 (at a cost of $17.50 per visit) by a Porterville doctor who gave him two prescriptions in mid-November. Abner did not recover, however, and died on Dec. 2, 1901 at age 82, and was buried on Jan. 4, 1902 in Deep Creek Cemetery. His estate was extensive, appraised in Sept. 1901 (presumably when he made out his will) at $4,740.00 (including $1,740.00 in personal property), though it appraised slightly lower just after his death, at $4,157.10 (including real estate valued at $2,240). His heirs received various farm equipment, livestock and farm animals, household items and the remaining cash after the $2,250 mortgage was paid off. (See 3rd-great-grandson Randy Baxter for a detailed listing of his estate.)
Abner is known to have sired 13 known children (3 from his 1st marriage, 10 from his 2nd):
Rachel Ballard (c.1840 -- after 1850)
John Hardwick BALLARD (c.1842 -- after 1870)
Byron BALLARD (1846 -- 1928)
Emma Sarah (Ballard) HILL (1854-1908)
William Budd BALLARD (1856-c.1920s)
Eliza Iantha (Ballard) KETCHUM (c.1857 – before 1901)
Justus Dunham BALLARD (1859-1943)
Catherine Malissa “Kitty (Ballard) HATCH (1863-1948)
Mary Louise (Ballard) QUINN (c.1864 – after 1901)
Harriet Ballard (1867-97)
James BALLARD (1874-78)
Sankey BALLARD (1876-78)
Kate Ballard (1878 – before 1900)
Inscription
"Ballard"
Gravesite Details
Marble-slab marker on top of stone base, near today's power pole for the sprinkler system, just north of the main aisle in from the gate. The marble marker is big enough to have held a plinth (marble spire) at an earlier date, but now gone.
Family Members
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