My father, when I made his acquaintance,
was a manufacturer of shoe blacking. He was also active in English politics
and took part in the Chartist Movement; Thomas S. Duncomb was their member
of
parliament. My father used to address
meetings and preside at meetings.
I was born on the 19th of November 1843. Soon after that my father joined a company that was seeking to form a colony in South America. They sent out pioneers to take up land and prepare for the colony. They chartered an American ship, the CONDOUR, Captain Whiting, and bade adieu to old England. A sea voyage at that time before the age of steamships was a great undertaking. The passengers numbered about 200 members of the Company.
My father and mother had a song indicating the feelings of the passengers when it was supposed to be evening and the ship was just getting out of sight of land which began:
"Shades of evening close not o'er us,
Leave our lonely bark awhile,
Morn alas! will not restore us
Yonder dim and distant isle."
I do not remember the dates when they
sailed and when they arrived but it [when they arrived] must have been
in the spring of 1846. When after a long voyage (I suppose about two months)
they sailed a little way up the Orinoco River in Venezuela. They arrived
at their supposed destination and they found that they had been deceived;
they had brought machinery and equipment to start a sugar plantation, but
the country was very unhealthy and they would not land. They found one
of their trustees that they sent to prepare for them still living.
My father [William Balls] went ashore to interview that trustee and with much difficulty he prevailed upon him to return 1000 pounds of the capital that had been entrusted to those trustees (the property of the Company).
The ship with the Company put into Port Spain, Trinidad. There the Company decided to recharter the ship to New Orleans. So they made another long voyage on the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. On this voyage occurred the scenes of my earliest remembrance. It must have been here that they caught the shark which laid on the deck of the ship when they killed it by putting a pole down its throat. I saw this and remember that it was one of the ship's capstan poles they used. I also remember when we passed the Island of Jamaica, seeing the moon, apparently coming out of the mountains.
After we arrived at New Orleans, the remainder of the Company's money had to be divided among the passengers so that they could each go his own way. I remember hearing my father tell how he had to carry $1000 in silver on his shoulder from the bank to the ship that it might be paid out to the passengers.
My father and mother and my little brother and I came up the Mississippi River on a steamboat to St. Louis. There my father had to act the hero. He first got work freight-handling on the levee and came home with bleeding hands. After that he carried goods in a basket to sell at the houses in the vicinity of the coal mines near St. Louis. It was on the road to the coal mines that he saw a load of coal and oxen, that had been drawing it, submerged in mud so that the oxen were drowned and only a little of the coal appeared at the top of the load. There at St. Louis my mother had very bad health and my little brother, Benjamin Cameron Balls, died.
An Englishman Father had known in London lived in Detroit, Michigan; so Father and Mother decided to move to that city. We came up the Illinois River as far as Peru and traveled from there in a wagon over prairie and corduroy road to Chicago. There we took passage in a disabled steamboat having only one paddle wheel and came by way of Lakes Michigan, Huron, and St. Clair to Detroit. At Detroit we bought out Jesse Beard's store on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Porter Street, situated on a sharp triangle. The Michigan Central Railroad ran along Michigan Avenue, south side, about where the sidewalk should be, the depot being where the City Hall now stands. This must have been in 1847.
In 1848 we were keeping store in a small building on Monroe Avenue at Campus Martius facing the Opera House site then occupied by H. R. Andrew's Railroad Hotel. The passenger train on the Pontiac Railroad started from Campus Martius at the side of the hotel. The cottage we occupied as a store and dwelling was owned by General John R. Williams, the ancestor of Bishop Williams of Marquette. It was here I played on the brick sidewalk. From here I sometimes started with Father to take a walk on the open water front along the docks; that was interesting to me as there were many steamboats and schooners to be seen and I had a fancy for boats and paddle wheels. It was from here that I went to church with my father's aunt and on one occasion, at least, attended service at the first St. Paul's Church on Woodward Avenue between Congress and Larned Streets. It was here my eldest sister [Elizabeth] was born. I was playing on the sidewalk and I heard a baby crying in the house so I went to the room door and called out "What have you got there Father?" While we were here a great fire occurred between Jefferson Avenue and the river, at which my father had to render assistance to the people trying to save their goods. I went with Sarah Chapman to see the fire and viewed the burning of the hotel on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Randolph Street from the foot of the market looking down Randolph Street. It was while we were there that General Taylor was elected President of the United States. In that campaign the boys would make bonfires on Campus Martius by building a cone of empty barrels and setting it on fire. Their campaign refrain was "Old Zack Taylor, he's the man for me."
After this we moved up Michigan Avenue to a house between 6th and 7th Streets. Father did business on the market. The market building was on what is now called Cadillac Square and consisted of the Old City Hall in front. The ground floor of which was occupied by butcher's stalls and a cover further back for huckster's stalls and still further back a plank platform for gardener's wagons to back up to. Prominent citizens at that time used to come to market with a basket to buy their supplies and carry them home. My father went into business selling goods on the market for the principal gardeners, including John Ford and William Adair. Of course, he had to buy a horse and wagon.
We were living on the north side of the Avenue and Father bought a lot on the same side about the middle of the block and built a cottage. There my second sister [Alice] was born, 1850.
We had happy times in those days, social functions were simple and friendships hearty. We are not ashamed of struggling when everybody is struggling and not ashamed of economizing when everybody is economizing. We read David Copperfield when it was new and came bound in paper. About this time, or a little before, the Michigan State Agricultural Society came into existence. Father exhibited a book 222 years old and a friend, Mr. Blake, exhibited a knitted quilt that he had made himself as part of the display at the State Fair.
About 1851 or early in 1852 a man who had acquired some gold in California came in view. My father had built onto the front of the cottage a two story business building with four sets of double doors in front. This was not yet finished but this man bought the whole place, which included a stable, for $1000 in 20 dollar gold pieces. So Father bought five acres on Woodward Avenue about where Palmer Avenue is now. This was on the east side of the Avenue. The Holden Road at that time began nearly opposite. So Father proceeded to go into the gardening business in competition with the Royal Society gardeners that he had been selling for. He paid $750 for the five acres which was about 212 feet wide and extended back to the woods far enough to make five acres.
There were some tremendous trees on this lot, sycamore and elm. The land was wholly new and uncultivated. It was a tough job to get it into cultivation but it was rich and productive. After setting men to work to cut down the big trees, he got about two acres of the front of the lot plowed and raised some successful crops. By great diligence and the use of hot beds he succeeded well. He raised flowers as well as vegetables including a great variety of dahlias. He took a good many premiums at the State Fair, which are (no doubt) still on record in the printed Transactions of the Michigan State Agricultural Society, of which J. C. Holmes, who had a garden on Michigan Avenue about where Eighth Street now is, was Secretary. For nearly five years we lived there on that five acres.
I forgot to say that between the time we sold the Michigan Avenue place and the time we started the gardening business we lived temporarily on Jefferson Avenue in a building that had been an orphan asylum close to Adair's garden, which was on the corner of a road to the river. This road is now called Adair Street. From our windows we could see the funerals going up Elmwood Avenue to Elmwood Cemetery. The view of the river was beautiful and the water was delightfully clear; of course, the passing steamboats were interesting to me. It was in this temporary home that my brother John [John James Balls] was born.
We built a cottage on the five acre lot on Woodward Avenue while we were sojourning on Jefferson Avenue, which must have been during the summer of 1852, and moved into it in the fall. From then on, of course, there was plenty of hard work, and that would not have mattered if it had not been for the ague which was very prevalent at that time.
It must have been in the spring of 1857 that we sold the five acres for $5,500 cash. Thinking to recoup our broken health, we started in high glee to visit our friends and relations in England in the spring of 1857. We went to New York and took passage on a sailing ship, the PLYMOUTH ROCK of the Swallowtail Line of London packets. We lived on the ship for about a week while it was loading at a burling slip on the East River. At length the crew of sailors that had been contracted for to serve on the voyage came on board to work off their liquor at the capstan and the ship was worked out into the stream, taken in tow by a tug boat and towed out to sea. On the way we met the Cunard sidewheel steamer coming in. I soon began to feel the upheaving of the deck when the ship rose on a swell. We had on the whole a pleasant voyage with a few little things like a shoal of porpoise or grampus, or the company for a little while of another ship, to break the monotony. Then when we had occasion to tack ship we would put a hand to the main starboard brace and run along the deck with it so as to swing the yard round quickly. There were five yards on each of the fore and main masts and at least four yards on the mizzenmast besides the spanker. Besides these there were staysails and a few studding sails. The rigging of a full rigged ship is a complicated affair.
The nearest approach to a storm we had on this voyage was what the 2nd mate called a "fresh gale" in which the foreyard was manned by a long row of sailors to furl the foresheet. A few days before the end of our voyage we came in sight of the coast of Cornwall and Devonshire. This came in view like a sunset cloud for the yellow or reddish color of the soil mixed with the blue of the atmosphere gave it a beautiful tint. We sailed up the channel and on Sunday were becalmed off Brighton and had to cast a small anchor when a little further off Beachy Head to avoid being carried back by the tide. About the part of the channel called the Downs a little steam tug came to our service and contracted to tow us to the London Dock promising another tugboat at Gravesend, but the second tugboat came long before we got to Gravesend. The first tugboat was ahead pulling by a hawser but the second one hitched onto the starboard quarter. This was in the evening when it was getting dark. The next day, the 30th of June the ship entered London Dock, one of the basins the ship must enter at high tide or remain out in the river until the next high tide. Here we were met at the ship by my Uncle Keating and Mr. Blake who was then living in London. Then followed a dinner of lamb and green peas at Grandpa Ball's residence. I do not remember whether Grandpa got home till evening but Grandmother was there and Aunt Clara and how many others I do not remember. We spent about three months in England mostly in London but went to see my mother's oldest brother, John Bradley, who kept the South End Blacksmith Shop in the seaside town of South End. This was one of the institutions of the town, which he inherited from his father, my grandfather Bradley. Whether this business is still in the family I do not know. I can only trace it as far as my cousin John Bradley.
We took a trip by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway into the county of Sussex to see Mother's eldest sister and her husband and son and daughters. The family consisted of her husband Mr. Robinson who was an invalid and the young son and daughter George and Alice Robinson and her elder daughters the Misses Eliza and Mary Ann Newberry whose father was dead.
The Crystal Palace was then in its glory with its magnificent system of fountains and terraced gardens. When we were walking up the long corridor from the railway station and saw the Italian Gardens, Father remarked, "This is worth the journey from America to see."
We started to return to Detroit by way of Liverpool. We had taken passage on a new boat, the steamer GENERAL WILLIAMS, but she was prevented from sailing by some defect so we were turned over to the steamer KANGAROO of the Inman Line. She was a small screw steamer with oscillating engines. A very good boat for her time, but she was tossed about on the waves like a cork. After staying for a little while at a coffeehouse in Liverpool, we got on board the KANGAROO.
I remember passing the Hollyhead lighthouse late in the afternoon. After leaving Queenstown, which was the first night out, we had some rough weather. I suppose the ship dashed into coming waves as was her custom and, as we found, smashed the forward bulwark and the window of the forward hatchway so that the water came rushing down, but this was trifling damage. This steamer tossed about on the waves like a corked bottle. She would pitch into a coming wave, then mount it and leave it as a high hill of water behind her, but she was successful in getting across the ocean.
I omitted to mention our activities in London. Besides my two grandmothers and one grandfather we had three more sisters of my mother and two more brothers of my mother, three brothers and two sisters of my father and cousins a plenty besides old friends. (My father's brother James lived in Australia). Besides this, we had the sightseeing to do -- the British Museum, the Zoological Gardens, etc.
On the way home we visited Niagra Falls on the American side. This was the autumn of 1857 in which we bought a farm in Greenfield on Grand River Avenue not quite six miles from the Detroit City Hall. This property included a two story brick house and one small barn. The front portion (about two acres) was planted to a large variety of fruit including a fine orchard, two grape arbors, pears, cherries, crabapples, a large quantity of currants, etc., all these in bearing. It was a place that Mr. Blindbury, the hotel man, had built and prepared for his own residence as he wished to retire. The rest of the land was mostly uncultivated, about 20 acres of it woods. Father added hot beds and garden crops as well as field crops and live stock including sheep and cows so we managed to get a living. We got books from the township library and passed some pleasant evenings, the hired help joining the family circle. In the early part of our experience, the school teacher, a man, boarded round at the homes of his pupils.
During our residence here occurred the Civil War and the appearance of the great comet. We sold this farm (I think it must have been about the beginning of 1865). We then moved into Detroit and kept a store on the corner of Woodward and Grand River Street East (N.E. corner).
In the early part of 1867, having sold out the store, we started on our second visit to England. This time we took passage on the Inman Line steamship CITY OF LONDON. I estimated the dimensions of the ship as follows: length, 400 feet; width, 40 feet; diameter of smoke stack, 9 feet. She was a screw steamer. I could not see the cylinders of her engine but I could the cranks and connecting rods. The cylinders may have been 100 inch bore if they were both alike. The stroke appeared to be about 3 feet with balanced cranks on the screw shaft.
After a very interesting stay in London and vicinity and a short venture in business, we came back on the same ship. When we started from Liverpool, the ship seemed to be loaded to capacity and looked quite low in the water, but she took on another crowd of passengers at Queenstown.
When she left Liverpool, the coal was piled in great stacks on the main deck forming a great rampart on each side of the ship. As the tremendous daily consumption made room in the bunkers, this was removed to them so that in a few days the decks were clear. I suppose the more modern steamships do not burn as much coal in proportion to their size and speed. I should think it would have taken an enormous amount of coal to have run that ship at modern speed.
After we got back to Detroit in the spring of 1868 we bought out a store and dwelling at 333-335 Grand River Avenue near 5th Street where we did business till after my father's death. We bought the business and real estate together. Mother afterwards traded the real estate for cottages and lots on Sixth Street near Alexandrine.
William S. Balls
[died 15 January (Tuesday) 1929]