William BALLARD

                   William Ballard and wife Elizabeth and Family Immigrate from England to America
1600s and 1700s , England & MA & RI
William Ballard (1603-1639) lived at Salford Priors, Warwickshire, England.  William Ballard (1603-1639) and daughter Hester (Esther) Ballard (1633-1717) have their baptisms recorded at the church at Salford Priors.

William Ballard (1603-1639) age 32 years and wife Elizabeth 32 years and children Hester (Esther) 2 years and John 1 year sailed on 13 July 1635 from England aboard the James and arrived at Massachusetts Bay Colony the last week of September in 1635.  They were settled at Lynn, MA on a 60 acre farm by 1638.  William Ballard was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston in 1638.  William Ballard was a Freeman on 02 May 1638.  He was elected Magistrate 08 June 1638 - 06 June 1639.  William Ballard probably died between March and May of 1639.  He had no written will.  He made a verbal will to Nicholas Browne and Gerald Spencer a day or two before his death that left half his estate to his wife and half his estate to his children.  The Estate Inventory was in June of 1643 and the lands were divided in December of 1647.

Some sources list a son William for William Ballard (1603-1639), but he is not on the ship roster when they immigrated in 1635 or in the Lynn records and he is not in William Knight's 1655 will which includes the other step-sons.

Widow Elizabeth Ballard married 2nd William Knight who died in 1655 and left 40s each to John Ballard and Nathaniel Ballard, step-children.  Widow Elizabeth Ballard Knight married 3rd on 28 Mar 1656 Allen Breed who left he a widow for the 3rd time on 17 Mar 1690.

Daughter Esther/Hester Ballard (born 1632) married Joseph Jenckes (1632-1717) and they raised 9 children in RI.

Sources:  Ballard Genealogy by C. F. Farlow, 1911; Boston Transcripts (baptisms); Babcock and Allied Families by L. E. DeForest, 1928; Our Colonial and Continental Ancestors by L. E. DeForest, 1930



The Great Migration Begins
WILLIAM BALLARDORIGIN: UnknownMIGRATION: 1635FIRST RESIDENCE: LynnOCCUPATION: Husbandman.CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admission to Lynn church prior to 24 May 1638 implied by freemanship.FREEMAN: 24 May 1638 [ MBCR 1:374].EDUCATION: Sufficient to be appointed magistrate of county court.OFFICES: Magistrate, Salem Quarterly Court, 26 June 1638, 27 July 1638 [MBCR 1:232; EQC 1:8, 9]. Committee to lay out land granted by colony, 6 September 1638 [MBCR 1:240]. Lynn representative on committee to levy colony rate, 6 September 1638 [MBCR 1:242]. Committee to determine boundary between Salem and Lynn, 13 March 1638/9 [MBCR 1:253]. On 6 June 1639, Timothy Tomlins was appointed in place of "Mr. Ballard" to "view the place by Linn, to see if it be fit for a plantation" [MBCR 1:263].   Admitted to Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, 1638 [ HAHAC 1:53].ESTATE: "Will[iam] Ballord" was granted sixty acres in Lynn in 1638 [ EQC 2:270].   A deposition concerning William Ballard's failure to make a will is recorded in the first volume of Suffolk probates, but the right edge of the page has been damaged, and several words are now illegible. The version published in 1848 [ NEHGR 2:183] and the version in the nineteenth-century manuscript copy of the original volume [ SPR 1:15 (copy)] differ from one another, and both contain words no longer legible. The following transcript is taken from the original record volume, with the original line breaks [SPR 1:15 (original)]:Nicholas Browne and Gearard Spencer [worn]affirmeth that being with Mr. Will[ia]m Ballard of Linn [worn]before his death, & persuading him to make his will [worn]said Mr. Ballrd told them, he intended to do it the next [worn]died before he could put it in writing, he would have [worn]half his estate, & the other half to be divided among [worn]children the said Will[ia]m Ballard being then of perfect [worn]inge taken upon oath 1 of 1st m[worn](The year this document was made is no longer legible, but in the published version and the nineteenth-century copy is given as 1639, a reasonable date given our estimate of William Ballard's date of death.)   On 27 June 1643, the inventory of "William Ballard of Lynn, deceased," was filed [EQC 1:54; EPR 1:24]. On 28 December 1647, Salem court noted that "Timothie Tomlins and Thomas Erington were appointed guardians of the children of William Ballard, deceased; and Timothie Tomlins having since deceased, Nicolas Batty of Lin was appointed in his place. Thomas Putnum of Lin and Thomas Laughton were appointed to divide the lands between the mother and children according to the will" [EQC 1:131; EPR 1:24].   On 2 September 1695, administration on "the estate of William Ballard, formerly of Linn, was granted to John Ballard son of deceased." The inventory of the estate of William Ballard deceased, taken 1 October 1695, totalled £173 10s., all in real estate: "upland in the neck 10 acres," £50; "salt marsh lying near the two trees in the town marsh being 5 acres," £25; "salt marsh in the neck 2« acres," £11; "Noman's Swamp so-called," £25 10s.; "the houselot 6 acres," £30; and "one parcel of land lying in Reding," £32 [EPR Case #1605].BIRTH: About 1603 (aged 32 in 1635 [ Hotten 107]).DEATH: Between 13 March 1638/9 (when he signed a committee report [MBCR 1:253]) and 6 June 1639 (when he was replaced on a committee [MBCR 1:263]). (DeForest made a slight error in estimating the date of death [ Dommerich Anc 46].)MARRIAGE: By about 1633 Elizabeth _____. She married (2) in 1640 or soon after William Knight (in his will of 2 December 1653 William Knight refers to "my four children which I had by my last wife Elizabeth," and makes bequests to "John Ballard" and "Nathaniel Ballard" [EPR 1:213; EQC 1:394]) and (3) Lynn 28 March 1656 Allen Bread.CHILDREN:    i    HESTER, b. about 1633 (aged 2 in 1635 [Hotten 107]); m. by 1652 Joseph Jenks Jr. (on 30 November 1652, "Ester, wife of Joseph Jenkes,Jr.," was one of four Lynn residents "fined for wearing silver lace" [EQC 1:271]; on 29 June 1655, John Ballard, brother of Hester, deposed that he "was his brother Jen
ckes's servant" [EQC 1:392]).    ii   JOHN, b. about 1634 (aged 1 in 1635 [Hotten 107]; deposed aged twenty-one in 1655 [EQC 1:392]; deposed aged twenty-five in 1659 [EQC 2:193]); m. by 1669 Rebecca _____ (see COMMENTS below).    iii   NATHANIEL, b. about 1636 (deposed in 1684 "aged forty-eight years" [EQC 9:341]); m. Lynn 16 December 1662 Rebecca Hutson.COMMENTS: On 13 July 1635, "W[illia]m Ballard," aged 32, husbandman, "Elizabeth Ballard," aged 26, "Hester Ballard," aged 2 and "Jo[hn] Ballard," aged 1, were enrolled at London as passengers for New England on the James [Hotten 107].   Savage proposed that the William Ballard who came in 1634 was father of the William who came in 1635, and hopelessly intermixed William of Lynn and William of Andover.   A 1638 list of those in Suffolk, England, who were delinquent in their payments of ship money includes a few names that are annotated as having gone to New England; as published, these entries include William Ballard of Bradwell [NEHGR 61:69]. Examination of the Bradwell parish register shows no entries for the surname Ballard in the late 1620s and early 1630s, but there is a baptism on 21 February 1629/30 for "Marye, the daughter of William Bullard." William Bullard, an early inhabitant of Dedham, Massachusetts, had a daughter Mary who married in 1650, so the ship money entry would seem to be for William Bullard of Dedham, and not for William Ballard [ TAG 72:135-36].   On 25 June 1639, "Mr. Holliock in behalf of the Lord Brooks, by Mr. Ballard's agreement ordered to pay 50s. per hire of a yoke of oxen for 3 months to Rich[a]r[d] Hutchenson" [EQC 1:11].   Most writers on this family claim that the immigrant had a son William [Ballard Gen 18; Dommerich Anc 46-47; TEG 16:71-72]. Very few records are ascribed to this alleged son: service on a grand jury in September 1665; baptism of a daughter Rebecca in 1668; a daughter Elizabeth who marries in 1684; and an administration and inventory of 1695, which names a son John.   Taking up these points in chronological order, examination of the published Essex court records shows that a court was held in Ipswich on 26 September 1665, but William Ballard does not appear in the grand jury or petit jury of this or any other Essex Court. This claimed record was given only by deForest, and may be an error in his own notes.   The birth of Rebecca Ballard, daughter of William, on 2 October 1669 does appear in the Lynn vital records, but no other birth of a child of William is found. There is a gap in the list of children of Nathaniel Ballard, whose first two recorded children were born in 1666 and 1670. Perley gives Nathaniel a daughter Rebecca, who married a Stace of Attleborough, and places her in this gap. We conclude that the Lynn clerk slipped in entering this birth, and gave the name of the grandfather rather than the father.   On 22 May 1684, "Allen Bread & Elizabeth Ballard of Linn" were married at Charlestown [ ChVR 1:123]. This record does not mention William Ballard, and we shall set this aside for the moment.   To this point, then, we have no evidence for a William Ballard who was son of the immigrant, and we are left with the administration of 1695. This consists only of six parcels of real estate, which have the appearance of the collection of land that a first-generation immigrant would receive; in particular, the "parcel of land lying at Reading" is almost certainly the sixty acres received in 1638 by the immigrant William Ballard [EQC 2:270].   As noted above, Elizabeth, the widow of the immigrant, had a life interest in half the estate of William Ballard, and she later married William Knight and then Allen Bread. As the wife of Allen Bread she was still alive as late as 1681 [TEG 11:98, citing ELR 6:22]; Allen Bread disposed of his estate to his children during his lifetime, and so does not leave a will in which his wife might be named. The most likely solution to this puzzle is that Elizabeth outlived her third husband for a few years, and that upon her death the real estate of the immigrant William Ballard that had bee
n in her hands for more than half a century had to be divided among her heirs. The "son John" would then be the son of the immigrant.   This leaves the 1684 marriage of "Elizabeth Ballard of Linn" as the only unresolved part of the puzzle, but as this record does not refer to William Ballard, it is not sufficient evidence to suppose that there was a William in the second generation, and so we conclude that William Ballard the immigrant did not have a son William.   On 29 June 1655, "John Ballad [sic , aged twenty-one years, deposed that when he was his brother Jenckes' servant he worked in that boat of Joseph Armitage's which was cast away" [EQC 1:392]. On 28 November 1659, "Jon. Ballard, aged twenty-five years, deposed that six months ago he saw John Chaxfield living in Barbadoes" [EQC 2:193].   Farlow claimed that John Ballard had two wives, Susanna Story and Rebecca _____ [Ballard Gen 18]. As evidence for the first wife, he gives only "Salem Rec.," the meaning of which is not evident. The only Story family which might have a daughter of the right age is that of William Story of Ipswich. Nora E. Snow does include a Susanna in this family, but without dates or any later history [ Snow-Estes 1:107]; William Story, son of the immigrant, had wife Susanna Fuller, and there may exist a document in which some member of the family calls her "daughter" or "sister," from which an improper conclusion was drawn.   We are assisted in analyzing the alleged marriages of John by the details of the recording of the births of his children. First, there is no record of a son William born on 1 October 1667, as claimed by Savage and many later writers. Second, the first two known children, Sarah and Rebecca, were recorded in the county but not in the town records, with the mother's name not given, and these are claimed by Farlow to be children of Susanna Story. The remaining children were recorded in the town records, with the mother's name given as Rebecca. Note that one of the children supposed to be born to Susanna Story was named Rebecca, and no child was named Susanna. For these reasons, we conclude that Susanna Story never existed and that John Ballard had only one wife, Rebecca, whom he married by 1669.BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: In 1902 Sidney Perley published an outline sketch of William Ballard and five generations of descent in the male line [ Essex Ant 6:39-40]. In 1911 Charles Frederic Farlow compiled an account of the descendants of this immigrant [ MDITBallard Genealogy: William Ballard (1603-1639) of Lynn, Massachusetts, and William Ballard (1617-1689) of Andover, Massachusetts, and Their Descendants (Boston 1911), cited above as Ballard Gen]. In 1930 Louis Effingham deForest prepared a brief account of William Ballard, with excellent analyses on several points [Dommerich Anc 45-47]. In 1996 Marcia Lindberg Wiswall revised and updated the earlier account by Charles Frederic Farlow [TEG 16:71-74].

BALLARD GENEALOGY - PAGES 15 - 17

WILLIAM BALLARD OF LYNN

Was registered as a passenger, shipping from England for New England, as we find in Hottens Original Lists that William Ballard, husbandman, ae.32, with Mary, ae. 26, Hester, ae.2, and John, ae. 1, came in the James in July, 1635.

The mention of his wife and of the children who grew up here, one of them afterward giving his age to correspond with this entry, makes it entirely certain that this refers to the Lynn pioneer.

Although called in the passenger list husbandman, i.e. farmer, he must have been a man above the ordinary in education and ability; for the General Court of Massachusetts Bay appointed him a magistrate in the roome of Captaine Turner, in the session held at Newtowne (Cambridge), June 8, 1638.  He was made a freeman of the colony May 2, 1638.

He had settled at Lynn, perhaps upon his arrival in New England, and had 60 acres of land, as we learn from the earliest record of the town extant, made in the year 1638.  [Essex Court Files.]  The court assigned various duties to him, one of these being to serve on the committee that established the line between Salem and Lynn, whose report was made March 13, 1638-9.  Some complaint was made of several persons who had been hiring laborers in an illegal way, and his name was in the list; but he was discharged Dec. 4, 1638, as he had hired none but such as had lots.  He had a suit in court in 1637, and was a juryman in 1638.  He was one of the Committee, appointed Sept. 7, 1638, to set off land to Richard Bellingham; but he died before the work was completed, and another was appointed in his place, May, 1639. [Essex Deeds, 2, 250.]

He died early in 1639, leaving no written will; but he told Nicholas Browne and Gerard Spencer, Jr. a day or two before his death that he wished half his estate to go to his wife, and the rest to be divided amongst his children; and this nuncupative will was proved upon their testimony 1 (1) 1638-9.  The Court had due information of the event, and appointed Mr. Tymothy Tomlins to act with Mr. Hauthorne (as magistrate) June 6, 1639.

He married first, in England Mary _____, who came with him in 1635 and must have died within a few years; and he married a second wife, Elizabeth _Lee_, who survived him.  She afterward married William Knight,* of Salem, and outlived him also.  He bequeathed to her and her children, the four children I had by my last wife Elizabeth, and made bequests also to John and Nathaniel Ballard of 40 shillings apiece, though not saying they were her children or why he remembered them; but when the executor paid them their legacies they receipted for them as from their father in-law (stepfather, as we now say).  Knights will was dated in 1653, proved in 1655.  Elizabeth married third, 28: 1: 1656, Allen Bread (Breed).

In the records of Massachusetts reports are given of meetings held in London in the years 1628 and 1629 by the members of The Massachusetts Bay Company, and one member whose attendance is noted, and a contribution he made to the cau