FRANCIS E. BALL
F. E. Ball came to Iranistan in the fall of 1852, to superintend the construction of the sawmill, which was afterwards sold to S. T. Care, of Council Bluffs. After finishing the mill, he went in partnership with Jeremiah Bradshaw in the mercantile business. The partnership continued about one year, when Ball bought Bradshaw's interest, and continued the business alone as long as he remained in the place. He had a wife and two children. He was a man of small stature, very excitable and nervous in disposition. When he first came to the county, he left his family at home, and boarded for a time with Jeremiah Bradshaw, then with Nelson Spoor. When his family came out, they went to housekeeping. They went to Wisconsin about the spring of 1856.
Contributed by Lisa Varnes-Rex from "History of Cass County, Iowa. Together With Sketches of its Towns, Villages and Townships, Educational, Civil, Military and Political History: Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Old Settlers and Representative Citizens." Springfield, Ill.: Continental Historical Company, 1884, pg. 363.
