Joseph Ball

Joseph Ball (1742 - 1808), son of Aaron Ball (1713 - 1752) and Hannah Camp (1712 - 1790), was born in 1742 at South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey; he died at the age of 66 in 1808 at South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey. He married (1) Rachel Tompkins (1742 - 1783), daughter of Eleazer Tompkins (1690 - 1745) and Hannah Tompkins, with whom he had five children; and (2) Phebe Hand (1751 - c1816), daughter of William Hand.

Joseph Ball moved to Camptown just before the Revolution. He lived and died on his father's homestead. He served in the English Army and assisted at the capture of Martinique. He was afterwards a soldier in the American Revolution and assisted at the capture of Stony Point under General Anthony Wayne. He served in the West Indies in the French War in Captain Amos Ogden's Rangers. He worked at various times as a tanner, a currier, a cordwainer, and a mason.

Marriages and Children

1. Rachel Tompkins (1742 - 29 October 1783)
   1. Eleazer Ball (26 October 1767 - 25 March 1825)
   2. Hannah Ball (17 November 1768 - after 1800)
   3. Israel Ball (17 May 1770 - after 1800)
   4. Mary Ball (13 January 1772 - circa 1773)
   5. Mary Ball (25 August 1773 - circa 1853)
   6. Joseph Baldwin Ball (15 March 1778 Monmouth County, New Jersey - 3 September 1842) of North Farms, Essex County, New Jersey
2. Phebe Hand (7 October 1751 - after 1816); no issue

The Balls Built Solidly and Well

A distinguished stone house known as the Amzi Ball house stood until 1929 on Parker Avenue near Boyden. It had been built in 1787 by Joseph Ball, son of Aaron and grandson of Thomas Ball. Aaron Ball was a brother of Timothy who built what is now Washington Inn, and of Ezekiel, who built Tuscan Hall in North Farms. The Balls built solidly and well. An earlier stone house had stood on the site of the one built in 1787. It is not known whether Aaron Ball... built this earlier house himself or found it standing on the tract of land when he took possession in 1741. An earthquake is said to have weakened its walls so that Aaron's son Joseph tore down the house; and, planning a larger one, he used the original stones for the ends and back wall, but laid up the front with new stones carefully matched as to color, and sought out from quarries at considerable distances. The stone part of the house was fifty feet across the front, with an ell of wood at one end. The house stood well back from the road on the north side of Parker Avenue, reached from the road by a country lane. This lane is now Briarcliffe Court and is solidly built up with recent new houses.

Until 1927 five generations of Balls lived in this house, all descendants of Joseph the builder. In that year it was sold by the Ball family, and subsequently it passed through a short period of neglect, finally ending with a fire which did considerable damage to its interior. Being deemed by the owner in too bad condition to salvage, it was sold in 1929 to a company that was developing Wychwood, an early American residential section, in Westfield. The purchasers, with an appreciative eye on its quality as a fine old house, carefully removed all the undamaged woodwork and hardware, which proved to be considerable; took down the walls stone by stone, marked each one, and transported them to Westfield where the house was rebuilt in Wychwood Drive as a handsome example of early American architecture. It stands among apple trees, with a split rail fence between it and the road, and with the original well curb and sweep in the garden at the back. Within, although considerably modernized, especially in the second stoy, it retains most of the features of its early floor plan, and much of its early charm.

As it stood on Parker Avenue, its interior woodwork was made of walnut from trees that grew on the farm of seventy acres that surrounded the house. It had at that time two parlors at the west end with a diagonal fireplace in each room opening into a massive stone chimney, an arrangement found in the Timothy Ball house, in the Old Stone House, and in the Littell house. A wide and handsome front door opened into a spacious hall that extended to the rear wall of the house where a second door opened out toward the back. The staircase on the right-hand side of the hall was of walnut with slender spindles and a graceful handrail tbat curved down to the bottom step without a newel post. The double parlors were entered by doors on the left side of the hall, with the dining room opening on the right. In the dining-room there was also a fireplace on the east wall, its chimney, which served the kitchen in the ell, being of brick instead of stone. The stone chimney at the west or parlor end of the house had a stone set into it bearing the date 1787. Nowadays chimney and date look down on Westfield apple trees.

Sources

• Ancestry.com. U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970. Louisville, Kentucky: National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Microfilm, 508 rolls. Volume: 139; SAR Membership Number: 27777.
• Harrison Genealogy Repository
• Lucy Cook Peel. Historical collections of the Joseph Habersham chapter, Daughters American revolution, Volume 2. Daughters of the American Revolution. Joseph Habersham Chapter (Atlanta, Ga.). The A. J. Showalter Co., printers, 1902. pp 66-67.
• Descendants of Edward Ball of New Jersey Interest Group
• Helen B. Bates. "Some Early Maplewood Houses: The Amzi Ball House" Maplewood, Past and Present: A Miscellany. Maplewood, NJ, 1948.
• DAR Ancestor #: A005468