Everything about John Ball Pioneer totally explained
John Ball (
November 12 1794–
February 5 1884) was born at Tenny Hill,
Grafton County, New Hampshire. He had a
common school education and graduated from
Dartmouth College in 1820. He studied law two years at
Lansingburg, New York and then went to
Darien, Georgia where he taught school five years, then returned to New York and was admitted to the bar in 1824.
As a member of
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth's first expedition, in 1832 he traveled to the
Oregon Country. While overwintering at
Fort Vancouver from 1832-1833, he was employed by
John McLoughlin to teach the children of the fort, thus becoming the region's first schoolteacher.
In the spring of 1833, using seeds and tools supplied by McLoughlin, Ball and a friend traveled to the
Salem, Oregon area and planted, raised and harvested a
wheat crop, making him the first European to farm in the region.
He returned via the
Sandwich Islands and
Cape Horn in 1833-34. In 1837 he settled at
Grand Rapids, Michigan, and represented eastern capitalists in locating lands during the "
wildcat banking" era. He also opened a law office and partnered with, among others, the Hon.
George Martin, formerly Chief Justice of Michigan and
Solomon L. Withey, late United States District Judge.
In 1842 he was appointed by
Governor of Michigan Barry, to select 300,000 acres (1,200 km²) of the 500,000 acres (2,000 km²) of land granted to Michigan by Congress for internal improvements. These were mainly selected about Grand Rapids and were mostly taken up with internal improvement warrants, and as these warrants could be bought for about forty cents on the dollar, it resulted in a speedy settlement of the
Grand River Valley. Mr. Ball was largely identified with Grand Rapids interests. He was interested in schools, geology,
lyceums and all local enterprises; he provided the first written account of the geology of Oregon.
In politics he was a conservative Democrat and served in the
Michigan State Legislature.
He donated the land in
Grand Rapids, Michigan that's now
John Ball Park and John Ball Zoo.
Further Information
Get more info on 'John Ball Pioneer'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://john_ball__pioneer.totallyexplained.com">John Ball (pioneer) Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
