San Luis Obispo County Biographies

ELBRIDGE BALL

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

ELBRIDGE BALL, of Arroyo Grande, was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, 
in 1833. His father, who died in 1861, kept a tobacco plantation, on which 
Elbridge lived until he was sixteen years of age. From 1849 to 1858 he was a farmer 
in Kane County, Illinois; and then, "enticed by the waftnre of a golden lure," he came to 
California and spent a year in the mines, however with but little success. He then 
went to Scott Valley to begin farming, but was limited in his operations by the scarcity 
and high price of agricultural implements. He made his own plow. The winter of 
1852-'53 was a hard one for the farmers. Provisions were costly, salt being $16 a 
pound, and everybody was living on what he could get cheap. Mr. Ball lived in Scott 
Valley ten years, and then moved to Butte Creek, where he lived until 1884. At that 
place he still owns a ranch of 1,000 acres, in partnership with his brother, on which they 
raise cattle and horses and are conspicuously successful. In 1884 Mr. Ball came to San 
Luis Obispo County, since which time he has resided on a ranch of thirty-two acres in 
the Arroyo Grande Valley, engaged in farming and fruit-raising. He came here in the 
first place for the sake of his health. He is a bachelor. He was personally acquainted 
with the Modoc Indians, and lived for some time among them. During the Modoc war, 
he was often thrown in contact with Captain Jack and Scar-faced Charley � the celebrated 
warrior chiefs � and he knew them well. He was a witness of the celebrated three-days 
fight between these Indians and the United States troops, in which the redskins were 
victorious. 

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917.