Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 49 (part 1)

Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry continues her series on Mayflower descendants, focusing on the millionaire inventors the Ball brothers, direct descendants of Governor William Bradford. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Today I continue my series on “Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who,” featuring the five Ball brothers, aka “Canning Kings,” and their wives. The special glass jars the brothers – descendants of William Bradford – designed, with their air-tight seals, helped people preserve food at home through the canning process.

Here is a photo of the Ball brothers (from left to right): William Charles Ball (1852-1921); Frank Clayton Ball (1857-1943); Lucius Lorenzo Ball (seated) (1850-1932); Edmund Burke Ball (1855-1925); and George Alexander Ball (1862-1955).

The brothers demonstrated strong entrepreneurial skills, and their success enabled them not only to enjoy the high life but also to engage in philanthropic activities. The women they married were no different and used their status in the community to promote many great causes.

The Ball brothers started Wooden Jacket Can Company in Buffalo, New York, in 1880 and became the world’s largest manufacturer of recyclable aluminum packaging for a variety of beverage, home and personal care applications.

In 1886 they renamed their business the Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, and moved its headquarters to Muncie, Indiana.

The business was renamed the Ball Brothers Company in 1922 and the Ball Corporation in 1969. You can read more on the Ball business history at Americana-Archives.

Descendants of Governor William Bradford

The Ball brothers’ Mayflower line connects through their mother Maria Polly (Bingham) Ball (1822-1892), a direct descendant of Mayflower passenger Governor William Bradford.

Here is the Ball brothers’ lineage:

• William Bradford and Alice Carpenter
• William Bradford and Alice Richards
• Hannah Bradford and Joshua Ripley, son of John and Elizabeth (Hobart) Ripley
• Faith Ripley and Samuel Bingham, son of Deacon Thomas and Mary (Rudd) Bingham
• Abisha Bingham and Mary Tubbs
• Abner Bingham and Sarah Clark
• Ripley Bingham and Elizabeth Mack
• Benjamin Bingham and Lydia Beebe
• Maria Polly Bingham and Lucius Styles Ball, son of William and Marcy (Harvey) Ball

Lucius Styles Ball (1814-1878)  was also an inventor – and no doubt his creative gene was passed on to his five sons, inventors of the Ball jar.

Ball-Crosley Marriage

Edmund Burke Ball married Bertha Crosley (1875-1957), daughter of a prominent Universalist clergyman, on 7 October 1903, in Indianapolis.

Bertha was a direct descendant of Mayflower passengers John Howland, Elizabeth Tilley, William Brewster, and his wife Mary and daughter Patience.

Here is Bertha Crosley’s lineage:

• Elder William Brewster and Mary
• Patience Brewster and Thomas Prence
• Mercy Prence and John Freeman
• Thomas Freeman and Rebecca Sparrow, granddaughter of Edward Bangs
• Mercy Freeman and Paul Sears
• Deborah Sears and Thomas Howes, son of Ebenezer and Sarah (Gorham) Howes, daughter of Joseph and Sarah (Sturgis) Gorham, son of John and Desire (Howland) Gorham, daughter of Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley
• Mercy Howes and John Tobey
• Mehitabel Tobey and Nathaniel Bourne
• Mehitable Bourne and Seth Swift
• Mehitable Adelia Swift and Rev. Marion Crosley, son of Moses and Sally Ann (Eulass) Crosley
• Bertha Crosley

Below is a marriage announcement for Edmund Burke Ball and Bertha Crosley. Many papers in the country covered the auspicious event, noting Ball’s millionaire status.

This article reports:

The Richest Bachelor in the Hoosier State.

He married Bertha Crosley Today – The Story of His Most Remarkable Career.

Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 7. – Edmund Burke Ball of Muncie, who married Miss Bertha Crosley of this city today, is one of the most remarkable men in Indiana. For fifty-six years his heart was proof against the arrows of Cupid. Thirty years ago he was practically penniless, but today he is the wealthiest bachelor in Indiana. It is also probable that he is the richest man in the state.

When a young man, Ball worked as a farmhand near Wooster, [Ohio], but he gave up the job to drive an oil wagon in Buffalo. He got his start there by inventing a “wooden jacket” for oil cans, and with the small sum he received from it he and his brothers started a tin shop, where they made tops for fruit jars. The fruit jar business looked attractive to Ball, so he and his brothers started the smallest factory of the kind in the world.

At Muncie he now controls the largest factory of the kind in the world. Besides he owns an electric car line in Chicago, a steam road in Michigan, and is interested in other projects that have made him a fortune of several million dollars.

Here is the couple’s photo shown in an Ohio paper.

The photo caption reads:

MUNCIE, IND., Oct. 3. – Edmund B. Ball, the millionaire fruit jar manufacturer of this city, will be wedded Monday to Miss Bertha Crosley, daughter of Rev. Marion Crosley, of the Central Universalist Church, Indianapolis. She is a niece of Powel Crosley, the Cincinnati traction magnate.

To be continued…

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Note on the header image: “Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor,” by William Halsall, 1882. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.