Life Story

Robert Ball was born on November 30, 1788, to John Ball and Jennifer Hicks in St. Ervan, Cornwall, England, and was baptized there on March 22, 1789. His early life coincided with Britain’s long struggle against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Like many young Cornishmen whose lives were tied to the sea, he entered the Royal Navy while still a teenager.

Around May 1804, at approximately fifteen years of age, Ball entered the Royal Navy, serving as a seaman for more than seven years. His service carried him through some of the most demanding years of the Napoleonic Wars. On December 30, 1810, while at Spithead near Portsmouth, he appears to have been injured. Less than a month later he entered the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar at Gosport for treatment. His naval career ended with his discharge on May 23, 1811.

Following his return to civilian life, Ball settled once again in Cornwall. On November 26, 1828, he married Jenny Stephens in St. Enoder, and the marriage record notes that he was then residing in the nearby parish of Roche. Within two years, however, Robert chose to seek a new life across the Atlantic.

He arrived at Quebec on June 12, 1830, joining the thousands of British immigrants establishing new homes in Upper Canada. By March 1831 he was living in Brockville, where he submitted a petition for land. Like many former sailors and soldiers, he hoped that land ownership would provide the stability unavailable during years of military service.

On July 14, 1834, Robert married Mary Ann Atkinson in Elizabethtown, Leeds County. Together they raised a large family whose descendants would spread throughout Ontario and beyond. Their known children included Edward, Jane, George, Joseph, Anne, Robert, Caroline, Mary Ann, and William Thomas Ball.

By 1852 the family had settled in Fitzroy Township, and Robert spent his remaining years in the developing communities of the Ottawa Valley. He died at Pakenham, Lanark County, on August 26, 1859, and was buried at St. Mark’s Anglican Cemetery. Although his gravestone records an age slightly younger than his documented birth date would suggest, it also preserves his connection to Cornwall, the homeland he left nearly three decades earlier.

Robert Ball’s life reflects the experience of many nineteenth-century Britons: born in a rural parish, shaped by service during the Napoleonic Wars, and ultimately becoming a settler in Upper Canada. His journey from the Cornish coast to the forests of Ontario forms an enduring chapter in the history of the Ball family.