Santa Barbara County Biographies

JOHN BALL

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

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

JOHN BALL, whose fine ranch borders the Santa Ynez River, was born in 
Northamptonshire, England, in 1831. His father, Daniel Ball, was a farmer, 
and subject lived at home until 1850, when he came to the United States 
and first settled at Lockport, New York, where for three years he was servant 
in a hotel. Then, in 1853, he went to Oswego County and farmed up to 1856, 
when he came to California, by way of Panama. He then went to the mines 
in Nevada County and mined three years with good success, but on account 
of failing health he was obliged to leave; so went to Monterey County, where 
he rented from 200 to 4=00 acres and raised grain for sixteen years. In 1876 
he came to Lompoc, and bought eighty acres of land, paying $35 per acre. 
That land was covered with brush and timber, but is now cleared and highly 
improved. He carried on general farming up to 1885, but since then has been 
an extensive breeder of hogs, of the Poland-China, Essex and Berkshire breeds, 
keeping about 150 head and fattening for market. He is about reducing his 
stock, to return to the cultivation of beans and mustard, and thus change his 
farming. Mr. Ball was married at Castorville, Monterey County, in 1863, to 
Miss Elizabeth Staley, a native of Missouri. They have but one child living, Charles 
Ball, who was born July 6, 1869, and he still lives at home. They lost their two 
daughters in 1879, with diphtheria, dying within four days of each other. 

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.