Mitchell Ballard (1847-1930)

BALLARD

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 5/17/2021 at 16:53:12

From Nevada Evening Journal April 29, 1930 (page 1)

Another Pioneer of Central Iowa Has Answered Call

MITCHELL BALLARD, 82, HAD COME TO STORY IN EARLY FIFTIES

Special to the Journal
Cambridge, April 29--Mitchell Ballard, 82, is dead and his body was laid to rest in the White Oak cemetery, south of Cambridge, Thursday afternoon.

Thus another of the original pioneers of this section of Iowa has passed away. There are but few of this number left. Soon the story of these earliest pioneer days will no long be told by these who participated in them. Mr. Mitchell Ballard who died at the home of his son, W. W. Ballard in Panora, Ia., Tuesday, April 22, came to Story county with his father, Joel Ballard, early in the fifties. His father and his father's brothers were the firs settlers in the timbe which afterward was named after the family "Ballard Grove." Mr. Mitchell Ballard was but a boy of about three at the time. There is a likelihood that they were the first, or at least among the first settlers in Story county. He was born in Keokuk county, Ia., near Ioka, July 2, 1848. Nearly eighty-two years ago brings within a year and a half of the time that Iowa became a state. Fort Des Moines at the time of his birth was only five years old. The family moved to Rising Sun near Fort Des Moines, when he was two years old. Here his mother died. Then the family moved to Ballard's Grove. About this time the village of Des Moines with a population of -- was incorporated. He was nine when it became the State Capitol. He was a young man of eighteen when the first --- ---- -------the --- -- family moved to White Oak during the early sixties.

Jan. 5, 1871 he and Miss Indiana Elliott, daughter of Wm. Elliott, were married. Her father was one of the first settlers in White Oak and she was the first white child born in Elkhart township. Of the four children born to them, three daughter and a son but one is --- -- ----- --

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