It's also interesting that John Ball's 18 year old brother was named John Ball. And their father's name was... John Ball.
Bartlett’s reasons for leaving besieged Boston are easy to imagine, but any professional appeal Concord would have held is harder to see.21 Silversmith John Ball had been working in Concord for ten years without conspicuous success; his silver is rare and he seems to have had to recapitalize periodically by mortgaging inherited land.22 Concord probate records from the end of the eighteenth century, reflecting midcentury households, portray a limited market for silver. The inventories note silver teaspoons and buckles but little else. Tankards are rare, only five or six recorded, and predictably occur in households with the other reliable markers of wealth, eight-day clocks and looking glasses. The most extensive assemblage of silver in eighteenth-century Concord belonged to physician and moneylender Abel Prescott. Prescott owned three tankards, six canns, a large pair and a small pair of porringers, a small porringer, a sugar box, a creampot, pepper caster and sugar tongs, two sets of pepper casters, a silver teapot, and seven large spoons and twelve small. He also owned three pairs of gold sleeve buttons made by John Ball—the one instance of local patronage documented in his inventory.23
Went to Concord, MA today and found John's 18 year old brother's headstone along with other relatives. Unfortunately, there isn't a record of John's death.
-Tim
Samuel Bartlett knew John Ball (he witnessed a deed for him in 1781), but there is no indication he knew him before coming to Concord in 1776 (Kane, Colonial Massachusetts Silversmiths, 167).
Lexington Road:
Grape Vine Cottage where Ephraim Bull lived and introduced the CONCORD Grape- in part a seventeenth century house.
Meriam House here occurred the first attack on the retreating British.
Dr. Samuel Prescott house here lived the young doctor who brought to Concord the news that the British were coming.
Reuben Brown house built about 1667 by Peter Bulkeley Esq. Governors Assistant and agent in London of the Bay Colony. Home of Reuben Brown in 1775 used to house prisoners taken that day.
Thomas Dane house built by first settlers and later owned by John Ball a pre-Revolutionary goldsmith.
21 [now 57] Lexington Road fine example of brickend Federal Period architecture.
Went to Concord, MA today and found John's 18 year old brother's headstone along with other relatives. Unfortunately, there isn't a record of John's death.
-Tim
Are poesy rings very common over there?
What an amazing find! It's really unbelievable to think about all of the history that is just sitting there waiting to be plucked from the ground! I'm glad you found a piece of it
Best of luck on your continued research