Notes
Ref#55:
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.
Ref#51:
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
Ref#186:
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."
Ref#176:
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
an 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
vic-
tory 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 Elizabeth-
town) and Mathilda (married Hobart Littell).
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