Ephraim Ball

Background

He was born on August 12, 1812 into a large pioneer family of Lake Township, Stark County, Ohio, and grew up in an atmosphere of frugality to learn at an early age the self-dependence that marked his life.

Education

Unable to complete even the meager common education of his day, he was compelled to earn his own living when only fourteen.

Career

He chose the trade of carpentry and when in his early manhood he felt equal to the task of supporting a family, he married Lavina Babbs of Stark County. Unfortunately, he had overestimated the earning power of his trade and was forced to find something more remunerative. With his brothers he then engaged to manufacture a thresher. The result being unsatisfactory and the construction of a second equally unprofitable, it was decided to build a foundry for the manufacture of the necessary parts, the unsatisfactory purchase of which had caused the first failures.

Ball then (1840) showed his versatility by acting in turn as architect, stone-mason, carpenter, painter, purchasing agent, and financier to the establishment which they built in Greentown, Ohio. Having seen molten iron once in his life, he was the logical choice for foundryman, so with patterns of his own construction he molded and cast the first products. After a year or two of indifferent success he designed his "Blue Plough, " which sold so extensively that he was financially able to manufacture the "Hussey Reaper, " and later a few threshers. In 1851 Ball's partners sold their interest to C. Aultman and David Fouser, and then George Cook and Lewis Miller were added to the firm which became E. Ball & Company. In the same year Jacob Miller became a partner, the firm name was changed to Ball, Aultman & Company, and the business was moved to Canton, where the manufacture of the "Hussey Reaper" was continued. A series of experiments and tests were made which finally resulted in the first "Ohio Mower. " This machine, a two-wheeled mower with flexible finger-bar, was due equally to Ball, Aultman, and Lewis Miller, while the application for the patent revealed a prior machine of similar design by Jonathan Haines of Pekin, Ill. When Aultman and Miller invented and patented several improvements and incorporated them in the "Buckeye Machine, " Ball sold his interest and patent rights to the others and in 1859 began the manufacture of the "Ohio Mower" from his own new plant. When this machine was outstripped by the "Buckeye, " he began the manufacture of his "New American Harvester, " of which he made as many as 10, 000 in one year (1865). Later when the great combines were formed Ball stayed out, only to find that he could not compete with them, and finally, in his old age, he was defeated by his own patents which were now owned by others, and knew again the poverty to which he had been born. Ball's principal contribution to the development of agricultural machinery was the "Ohio" or "Ball" mower, described in his patent of December 1, 1857. This was an excellent machine and the first of the two-wheeled flexible or hinged bar mowers to gain a wide reputation as such. Its success and popularity contributed greatly to the change from the single driving-wheel machines to those with double drivers.

Achievements

• Ephraim Ball is best remembered for his "Ohio Mower".

Connections

He married Lavina Babbs of Stark County.

Wife:

Lavina Babbs