Martha (Moore) Ballard (abt. 1735 - abt. 1812)

Born about 20 Feb 1735 in Oxford, Worcester County, Massachusetts [uncertain]

Ancestors

Wife of Ephraim Ballard Sr — married 19 Dec 1754 in Oxford, Massachusetts

Descendants

Died about May 1812 at about age 77 in Augusta, Kennebec, Maine, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: David Robinson [send private message]

Martha (Moore) Ballard is Notable.

Biography

Ballard was born in Oxford, Massachusetts, on February 20, 1735 to Elijah Moore and Dorothy Learned Moore. She married Ephraim Ballard in 1754. The couple had nine children between 1756 and 1779. They lost three of them to a diphtheria epidemic in Oxford in the summer of 1769. Martha Ballard died in May of 1812 in Kennebec, Maine.^[1][2]

Martha Ballard's obituary was published on June 9, 1812 in the American Advocate and simply stated:

"Died in Augusta, Mrs Martha, consort of Mr Ephraim Ballard, aged 77 years."^[3]

Healer and Midwife

1785 until her death in 1812. Martha delivered her first baby in July of 1778, less than a year after her arrival in Maine. "Giving birth to nine babies was also a part of her preparation as a midwife. As one eighteenth-century midwifery manual expressed it, "There is a tender regard one woman bears to another, and a natural sympathy in those that have gone thro' the Pangs of Childbearing; which, doubtless, occasion a compassion for those that labour under these circumstances, which no man can be a judge of."

Her Diary

Between 1785 and 1812, Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work and domestic life in Hallowell on the Kennebec River, District of Maine. The sometimes cryptic log of daily events, written with a quill pen and homemade ink, records numerous babies delivered and illnesses treated as she traveled by horse or canoe around the Massachusetts frontier in what is today the state of Maine.

After Martha’s death, her diary remained in the care of her daughter Dorothy Lambard, also known as Dolly. When Dolly passed away in 1861, the diary passed to her daughters Sarah Lambard and Hannah Lambard Walcott. In 1884, Sarah and Hannah gave the diary to their niece, Mary Hobart, MD who was 33 years old and had just graduated from medical school. It was also the year that the Massachusetts Medical Society first voted to admit women physicians. The diary of a New England pioneer of medicine had passed to her great-granddaughter, another New England pioneer of medicine. ^[4]

A Midwife's Tale

For many years historians did not give considerable attention to Martha Ballard's diary, generally dismissing it as repetitive and ordinary. After eight years of research, historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich produced "A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785–1812."

In 1991, "A Midwife's Tale" received the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the John S. Dunning Prize, the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize in Women's History, the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Book Prize, the Society for Historians of the Early Republic Book Prize, the William Henry Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine, and the New England Historical Association Award. Later, the PBS series "The American Experience" developed "A Midwife's Tale" into a documentary film. PBS also hosts a website with a lot of interesting information about Martha's life and times.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for Martha Ballard:

Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, who was also known for her work during the Civil War, was Martha's grand niece. Clara was the granddaughter of Ballard's sister, Dorothy Barton.

Research Notes

Ballard's obituary was published in The American Advocate for June 9, 1812. She died sometime in May of 1812. Ballard's obituary was published on June 9, 1812 in the American Advocate. Wikipedia has her death as May 1812. Sourced in biography. Eileen Bradley

Sources

1. ↑ "Martha Ballard," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (accessed February 13, 2014)
2. ↑ Franklin P. Rice, ed., Vital Records of Oxford, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (Worcester, Mass.: 1905), pp.13, 14, 268; North, p. 804; American Advocate (Hallowell, Me.)
3. ↑ DoHistory Created by Film Study Center, Harvard University and hosted by Roy Rosenzweig. Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. http://dohistory.org/book/100_introduction_txt.html Page 5.
4. ↑ Ulrich, Laurel "A Midwife's Tale, The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on her Diary, 1785-1812" Vintage Books 1991.

• DoHistory is a wonderful interactive website centered on the life of Martha Ballard. It was developed and maintained by the Film Study Center at Harvard University and is hosted and maintained by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University.* Ballard, Martha. Diary. Matha's diary has been made available on DoHistory
• PBS American Experience: A Midwife's Tale Eighteenth-century America through a woman's eyes.https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/search/?q=midwife
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/173133854/martha-ballard