California Biographies
Ballou, Volney James 1827 - 1877

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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

Ballou, Volney James (deceased). The subject of this sketch, whose portrait
appears in this work, was born in Saratoga county, New York, May 20, 1827. Here
he attended the common schools. In 1839 his parents emigrated to Cuyahoga
county, Ohio, where Volney finished his education, after which he sailed around
the world, and was absent from port thirty-three months, on a whaling voyage.
During the California gold excitement in 1849, he returned to Ohio, and being
possessed of more than an ordinary adventurous spirit, and enured to the
hardships incident to a roving life, he at once emigrated to this State and
commenced mining in El Dorado county, continuing in this pursuit until the Fall
of 1853, at which time he settled in Santa Rosa valley, on the farm where he
died. In 1864, he returned to the East, enlisting in the Subsistence Department,
and was detailed as clerk in the commissary depot at Johnsonville, Tennessee,
serving in this capacity for nine months, when he was honorably discharged,
returning to Du Page county, Illinois. On March 29, 1867, he married at
Naperville, in that county, Mrs. Michael Leonard, whose maiden name was Rosia A.
Mayer. She was born in Northampton county, Pennsylvania, November 2, 1839.
Immediately after their marriage, they returned to this State. During his long
residence in this county —from 1853 to the time of his death on June 4, 1877—it
can be truthfully said of Mr. Ballou that he was an honorable, upright
gentleman. Starting out in life as he did, for himself when quite young, he has
achieved all his successes single-handed, and in the presence of obstacles which
only the most indomitable energy and courage could have surmounted, has given
him an honorable position among his fellow men.

Source: HISTORY OF SONOMA COUNTY, Alley, Bowen & Co. 1880