Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 59

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924

USA > Massachusetts > Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 59

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

(V) Ebenezer, son of Jeremiah Ball, was born in Townsend, July 3, 1729, died April 7, 1797. He served in the revolution in Captain James Hasley's company, Colonel William Prescott's regiment, and marched on the Lex- ington alarm, April 19, 1775; also in Captain Henry Haskell's company, same regiment, in January, 1776. He married, in 1753, Rebecca Butterfield, of Westford, born July 31, 1729, died October 21, 1800. Children, born in Townsend : I. Rebecca, November 8, 1754, died August 15, 1830; married (first) Febru- ary 20, 1787, William Weston; (second) Abel Keyes ; (third) April 27, 1830, Rogers Weston. 2. Ebenezer, September 2, 1756, mentioned below. 3. Olive, September 6, 1758, died De- cember 5, 1838; married, November II, 1784, John Blood. 4. Susannah, October 22, 1760, died October 9, 1833; married, December 16, 1788, Joseph Heywood. 5. Hannah, October 20, 1762, died June 5, 1833; married, March 22, 1786, Nathaniel Shattuck. 6. Abraham, January 26, 1765, died September 15, 1840; married, 1785, Deliverance Perham. 7. Bath- sheba, June 14, 1769, died May 2, 1815; mar- ried, November 16, 1791, Hezekiah Winn. 8. Noah, August 3, 1771, died August 28, 1847 ; married, May 26, 1796, Betsey Weston. 9. Mary, May 6, 1773, died March 6, 1858; mar- ried, December 20, 1797, Zaccheus Richardson.

(VI) Ebenezer (2), son of Ebenezer (I) Ball, was born in Townsend, September 2, 1756, died December 5, 1837. He was in the revolution in the same companies as his father, and saw the same service. He married ( first) October 18, 1781, Sarah Shattuck, of Pepperell, born September 3, 1755, died July 8, 1785. He married (second ) June, 1786, Hannah Smith, of Mason, New Hampshire, who died April 4, 1787. He married (third) October 10, 1787, Phebe Weston, of Townsend, born December 19, 1767, died November 2, 1848. Children : 1. Sarah, born November 20, 1782, died Janu- ary 3, 1854: married, November 3, 1808, Dea- con Samuel Walker. 2. Ebenezer, April 2, 1787, mentioned below. 3. David, November 7, 1788, died March, 1863; married Nancy Weston. 4. Deacon Levi, July 7, 1790, died October II, 1849; married, January 10, 1813, Lucy Burbank. 5. Rev. Hosea, August II, 1792, married, September 12, 1817, Sarah IIolmes. 6. Phebe, August 4, 1794, died July 31, 1852; married, December 31, 1833, Captain Edmund Blood. 7. Samuel, August 7, 1796,

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married Olive Nelson. 8. Hannah, October 31, 1800, died February 17, 1840; married, October 10, 1821, Samuel W. Burbank. 9. Roxanna, born November 23, 1804, married, December 10, 1834, Nathan Davis. 10. Var- num, June 30, 1807, married, September 2, 1828, Nancy Ball, of Lunenburg.

(VII) Ebenezer (3), son of Ebenezer (2) Ball, was born April 2, 1787, died December 31, 1845. He married Sarah Swift, of Ware. He was a carpenter by trade. Children: I. William, May 7, 1815, mentioned below. 2. Emory, September 11, 1818. 3. Amos, June 14, 1820, died August, 1846. 4. Hosea, Sep- tember 20, 1822. 5. Mary Mariva, December 29, 1825.

(VIII) William, son of Ebenezer (3) Ball, was born May 7, 1815, at Ware. He was educated in the public schools of his native town and lived during his boyhood with his parents in Ware. He began to learn the trade of carpenter, working with his father, but became disgusted with the work one day while helping his father shingle a house, threw down his hammer and quit work. He secured work in a machine shop in Ware Center, and soon became a skillful machinist. He developed wonderful ability as an inventor. He first invented and patented a machine for manu- facturing the wooden pegs used in making shoes, a great labor saver. Next he produced a device for using horse power to operate machinery. He removed to Paterson, New Jersey, where he devised and manufactured the machinery used in making Colt's pistols and other fire-arms. Thence he went to Whit- neyville, and invented a rifling machine that rifled four gun barrels at the same time. At Chicopee he invented the paper cap used to fire cannon and the friction primer, made of paper, then the brass primer, and manufactured these goods for a time. He next devised the ingen- ious gate used to regulate the flow of molasses from barrels. He invented the machine that is still in use in the manufacture of pins. He devised a machine to produce the carpet tack with leather washer attached, formerly very popular. Through his inventions in connection with the manufacture and handling of fire- arms he met Commodore Stockton of the United States ordnance department, who was interested in mines and mining, and at his instance, invented a steam stamp mill to crush ore. Afterward he produced the first gold washer and amalgamator in America. He also invented and built machinery for copper min- ing, including a steam stamp mill and copper

washer for the Copper Falls Mine, built under his guarantee to do better work than anything used hitherto. His business in mining machinery became extensive. He built mills for Pewabic and Franklin Mines, Sheldon and Columbian Mills, South Pewabic, and he sold the rights for the Calumet and Hecla and Osceola Mines. He was the first man to inaugurate the system of interchangeable parts in the manufacture of fire-arms. Considering the number, the use- fulness and variety of his inventions, their effec- tiveness in saving labor and increasing the production of mines and factories, his career as an inventor can scarcely be equalled in the history of American genius. He died January 31, 1870. In politics he was first a Democrat and later a Republican. In religion a Congre- gationalist. He married (first) June 17, 1838, his first cousin, Sarah Shattuck Walker, born December 18, 1818, daughter of Deacon Sam- uel and Sarah ( Ball) Walker, of Townsend, Massachusetts. Samuel Walker was born March 27, 1783, died July 19, 1849; his wife Sarah ( Ball) Walker, was born November 20, 1782, died January 3, 1854, daughter of Ebe- nezer Ball (6) and sister of Ebenezer Ball (7). Children : I. Albina S., born March 27, 1841, married, January 23, 1862, John W. Colton, of Westfield, Massachusetts; he was born June 13, 1832, died January 10, 1907 ; had children: i. Helen Ball, born December 15, 1863, died May 10, 1864; ii. William Ball, born July 13, 1868, died March 30, 1893; iii. Gertrude Whitman, born December 18, 1871, married, April 21, 1891, William J. Barton ; had Sidney Colton, born April 21, 1892; Leota Albina, born June 29, 1896; Helen Ball, born April 15, 1898, died March 4, 1899 ; Lois, born December 19, 1899, died September 1I, 1900. 2. George W., born October 18, 1843. 3. Edwin Pliny, mentioned below. He married (second ) Adelia E. Southworth (nee Mead) and had one child who died in infancy.

(IX) Edwin Pliny, son of William Ball, was born in what is now Chicopee, Massachu- setts, January 26, 1846. He attended the public schools of Chicopee and attended the Chicopee high school when Governor George D. Robin- son was principal. He left the high school during his fourth year to take up draughting in the office of the Ames Company of Chicopee. After a short time he entered Williston Semi- nary at Easthampton. He became associated with his father in business and continued until he died. Afterward he carried on his father's business until the patents had expired. He became associated with A. D. Briggs & Com-

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pany, bridge builders, and during the nine months he worked for this concern Mr. Ball drew the plans for the first iron drawbridge over the Connecticut river, built at Saybrook Junction. Next he went into business for him- self as a mill and mechanical engineer. He built the first new mill at Ludlow, Massachu- setts, in 1878; Mill No. I at West Warren and all the other buildings completed there at that time, 1880. He built the Lower Canal bulkhead at Bondsville ; then the Richmond Paper Mills at East Providence, Rhode Island. He rebuilt the woolen mills that had been destroyed by fire at Saxonville, Massachusetts. From 1884 to 1904 he made his home in Palmer, Massa- chusetts, since then in Springfield. In the meantime he constructed the Ashcroft Manu- facturing Company plant at Bridgeport, Con- necticut ; the plant of the South Paris Manu- facturing Company of Paris, Maine ; the plant of the Suffolk Cordage Works, Chelsea, Mass- achusetts; factories C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J and K for the General Electric Company at Lynn, Massachusetts, and the plant of the Lynn Gas & Electric Company ; the factory of the Amer- ican Projectile Company ; the Electric Light station at Elizabeth, New Jersey ; electric light plants at Poughkeepsie, New York; at Hudson, New York; at Catskill, New York; at Palmer, Massachusetts; at Stafford, Con- necticut ; at New Britain, Connecticut; the machine shop of the New Hampshire State schools at Durham, New Hampshire. He also rebuilt the dam destroyed by a freshet at Jewett City, Connecticut ; built the Red Bridge Dam & Power plant at Ludlow, Massachusetts ; Cushman woolen mill, and dormitory at Mon- son Academy. He was the engineer of the new bulkhead, canal and power house at Turner's Falls, Massachusetts. Few engineers have so many great works that will serve as monuments to their skill, ingenuity and genius. Mr. Ball is a Republican in politics and a Unitarian in religion. He is a member of the following clubs and societies: Thomas Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, of Palmer, and Palmer Club. He married, December 2, 1869, Ada I. Brigham, born December 3, 1846, daugh- ter of Lemuel Hawley and Lucinda D. ( Bam- ford) Brigham. Children: I. Mina L., born September 14, 1870, married, September 28, 1897, William Rodney Marsh, a dentist, of Brandon, Vermont ; had children: i. William B., born September 10, 1899, died October 23, 1899 ; ii. - Margaret B., born February 21, 1903 ; iii. Edwin B., born November 23, 1904; iv. Elizabeth S., born October 6, 1908. 2. Gertrude

A., September 14, 1872, married, October 10, 1906, John Howard Willis, an architect, lives in Berkeley, California. 3. Edwin Brigham, De- cember 22, 1876. 4. Sarah Walker, July 18, 1883.

CORDIS

This name, which if of very rare occurance in the early rec- ords of Massachusetts, is evi-

dently that of a Dutch immigrant who settled in the Bay State after New Amsterdam be- came an English colony.

(I) Cord Cordis, born in 1709, was a mer- chant and lived in Boston, where he married, November 30, 1733, Sarah Eveleigh, who died in 1740, and was buried at King's Chapel, March 28, 1740. He married (second) at Boston, October 2, 1740, Hannah, widow of Elnathan Jones. He died at Concord. Massa- chusetts, July 29, 1772, aged sixty-three years. His widow Hannah died in London, England, 1779. Cord Cordis had four children by his first wife and two by his second wife. They were: I. John, born December 28, 1733. 2. Sarah, born December 29, 1734; married John Wheelwright. 3. Frederick, born October 28, 1736. 4. Catherine, born March 18, 1739. 5. Thomas, see forward. 6. Joseph.

(II) Thomas, son of Cord and Hannah (Jones) Cordis, was born September 5, 1741, in Boston, died in 1774. He married, October 5, 1763, Elizabeth Vinton, who survived him and married (second) March 16, 1780, Jonas Lee, of Concord and Ashley. She died March 9, 1804. Jonas Lee died in Ashley, April 21, 1819. Four children were born to Thomas and Elizabeth (Vinton) Cordis: I. Thomas, see forward. 2. Hannah, married Thomas Oliver Larkin. 3. Mary, born June 5, 1772, married Abraham Butterfield, died August 22, 1802. 4. Elizabeth, born 1773, died unmarried, August 30, 1779.

(III) Thomas (2), eldest son of Thomas (I) and Elizabeth (Vinton) Cordis, was born in Boston, 1771. He was a prominent and respected merchant of that city, was of the firm of Bellows, Cordis & Jones, importers of British dry goods, afterwards of the firm of Scudder and Cordis, importers of and dealers in hardware. He was one of the incorporators of the fifth bank of Boston, known as the New England Bank, which was organized in 1813. He was one of the first board of directors of the City Bank, organized in 1822. He married Sarah S. Kemble, December 5, 1799. He married (second) July 22, 1813, Hannah Cordis, born in Charlestown, Massa-

Thomas F. Cardio

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chusetts, November 5, 1789, died July 25, 1832. Children : 1. Thomas Frederick, born Novem- ber 24, 1814, died July 19, 1881. 2. Sarah Eliza, married Russell Jarvis; was lost on the steamer "Lexington," with her two children, January 13, 1840. 3. Francis Temple, born January 16, 1817, see forward. 4. Mary Ellen, born August 6, 1818, died -. 5. Edward, born March 5, 1821, died April 4, 1904. 6. Clarence Russell, born December 3, 1822, died November 13, 1859. 7. Charles, born Febru- ary II, 1829, died February 3, 1831. Thomas Cordis died December 8, 1854.

Hannah (Cordis) Cordis was the daughter of Captain Joseph and Rebecca (Russell) Cordis, and granddaughter of Cord Cordis. Captain Joseph Cordis was born June 4, 1740, in Charlestown, and died in 1811. He was a man of much prominence, and after 1781 a large real estate holder. Cordis street, named in his honor, was laid out through his pasture ; an old deed in possession of a member of the family shows the transfer by Thomas and Mary Welsh to Joseph Cordis of a house and a wharf, forty-six feet. on Joiner street. He lost heavily through the influence on Ameri- can commerce of the wars between France and England, and his losses are supposed to have hastened his death. Captain Joseph Cordis married, June 15, 1770, Rebecca Russell, born February 2, 1746, died at Reading, Massachu- setts, February 19, 1800, daughter of Richard and Mary (Cary ) Russell. He married (sec- ond1) Elizabeth Spear, in 1803. Children of first marriage: 1. John Blake, born February 6, 1772, died 1818. 2. Rebecca, born June 4, 1774. 3. Frances Temple, born December 3, 1776, died April 8, 1815. 4. Hannah ( Ist), born August 3, 1778, died March 20, 1780. 5. Mary, born April 16, 1781, died November 23, 1868. 6. Joseph, born June 17, 1782, lost at sea, in 1805. 7. Thomas, born June 13, 1783, died May 25, 1815. 8. An infant, born in 1784, died the same day. 9. Harriet, born February 19, 1785, died September 17, 1786. IO. Hannah (2d), born November 5, 1817; wife of Thomas Cordis, aforementioned.

(IV) Francis Temple, son of Thomas (2) and Hannah (Cordis) Cordis, was born at 43 Beacon street, Boston, January 16, 1817. ' He was educated at a private school in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and brought up as a merchant, being of the firm of Horton, Hall & Company, 114 Milk street, Boston, importers and dealers in hardware. He was a man of wealth, and influential and highly respected. In his youth he was a member of the Boston

Cadets. In March, 1843, he settled in Long- meadow, where he resided the remainder of his life, continuing in business in Boston for several years previous to his retirement. He married, April 30, 1840, Ruth Anna Prescott, born in Boston, November 9, 1819, died July I, 1886, daughter of Jonathan Prescott, of Boston. Children: 1. Thomas Francis, born July 28, 1843, see forward. 2. Charles Fred- erick, born April 23, 1849, died June 26, 1851. Francis Temple Cordis died April 3, 1890.

(V) Colonel Thomas Francis, son of Fran- cis Temple and Ruth Anna (Prescott) Cordis, was born July 28, 1843, in Longmeadow, Mass- achusetts. He obtained his education in pri- vate schools, and at Williston Seminary, in Easthampton, Massachusetts. At eighteen years of age he responded to the call for troops in the civil war, and enlisted Septem- ber 25, 1862, in Company A, Forty-sixth Mass- achusetts Regiment Volunteer Infantry, and served as a sergeant until July 29, 1863, when he was honorably discharged on account of expiration of term of service. The Forty- sixth Regiment served with credit under the command of Major General John G. Foster, and was stationed most of the time at New- bern, North Carolina. It took part in the Goldsboro expedition ; a raid from Newbern, which began December 11, 1862, and resulted in the capture of Kinston, the Confederate center of operations in North Carolina; De- cember 14, it dispersed a rebel force at White- hall : December 16, it destroyed a railroad bridge and miles of track, besides defeating the enemy with heavy loss at Goldsboro, De- cember 17. It also took an active part in the operations about Newbern and Little Wash- ington, North Carolina, in March and April, 1863, caused by Confederate attacks upon these places. Company A, in which Mr. Cordis served, while on picket duty at Batch- elder's Creek, North Carolina, was attacked by a large force of Confederates, May 13. 1863, and without other support held the enemy in check for several hours until reinforce- ments came to their relief. In 1876 he became a member of the Second Battallion of Infantry, Massachusetts Militia. August 29, 1876, he was appointed paymaster on the staff of the battallion, with the rank of first lieutenant, and served in that capacity until August 20, 1879. He was elected and commissioned second lieu- tenant of Company B (Springfield City Guard), Second Regiment Infantry, M. V. M., and was promoted to first lieutenant of the company February 11, 1889; appointed

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on the staff of Brigadier General Benjamin F. Bridges as aide-de-camp, February 20th, 1889, with the rank of captain; promoted to be assistant inspector general of rifle practice, January 12, 1894, with the rank of major ; was retired with the rank of major, August II, 1897, having served continuously for over seventeen years in the Massachusetts militia. During the Spanish-American war he recruit- ed and organized the Twenty-seventh Com- pany of Provisional Militia, of which he was elected captain, July 21, 1898, and was honor- ably discharged April 15, 1899. He was again retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel, May 27, 1899, under provisions of Section I, Chapter 302, Acts of 1899. He is a member of E. K. Wilcox Post, No. 16, Grand Army of the Republic, of Springfield. He is very much interested in all matters concerning the civil war, and has compiled a complete chrono- logical list of all officers that were killed or died from wounds during the war, giving the regiment, place, and date of death, also a chronological list of all battles of the civil war, with a list of regiments engaged in each battle, and the losses of each, both on the Union and Confederate sides, also a list of all officers of Florida and North Carolina who were killed while in the Confederate service.

Colonel Cordis is a staunch Republican, takes an interest in politics, and was a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1876. He has a villa at Seabreeze, Florida, where he spends his winters.

Thomas Francis Cordis married, in Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania, November 13, 1867, Annic Byrd Colton, of Philadelphia, born June II, 1845, daughter of Simon and Mary ( Flint ) Col- ton. Children: Grace Temple, born May 23, 1872, (lied February 23, 1875 : Thomas Edward, born August 16, 1884.

PIIIPPS The Colonial records give the orthography of the name as Phips. but the family adopted the spelling of Phipps. Two immigrants appeared in America ; James in New England in the first half of the seventeenth century, and Joseph, born in Reeding, England, in 1640, as a member of William Penn's colony, that settled Pennsylvania in 1672. Like Penn, he had embraced the Quaker faith, and their descendants, who were very prolific and noted for their longevity, were represented in 1907 by a representative in the sixth generation. Pennsylvania continued to be the home of Joseph Phipps and his descendants up to the

fifth generation when they began to move west. A careful compiler of genealogical records gives to twelve children of the two families representing the second generation of Phipps one hundred and eight of the third generation and eleven hundred and forty-two descendants in one hundred and ten years, and three thousand in one hundred and forty years. We have to do with the New England branch.

(I) James and Mary Phipps, sturdy pion- eers, founded Phippsburg, Maine, in the early part of the seventeenth century. One of their sons was William Phipps, the first royal gov- ernor of the colony of Massachusetts. Mary Phipps was still a comparatively young woman when her husband died, and she married John White.

(II) Sir William, son of James and Mary Phipps, was born in 1651, on the bank of the Kennebec river, in a border settlement known as Phippsburg, located near Woolwich, Maine. His father was a husbandman, extensively engaged in raising sheep, and young William was up to his eighteenth year occupied as keeper of these flocks of sheep, but his ambi- tion led him to leave his father's farm when eighteen years old, and he learned the trade of ship building, and after mastering it he found work in the ship yards of Boston. He first learned to read and write while living in Boston. He married a widow with some prop- erty, and while working at his trade conceived the plan of locating and fishing up the treasure represented to be stored in the Spanish galleon wrecked fifty years before in the West Indies. Hle enlisted the co-operation of the English Admiralty who furnished him a frigate and made him its commander, but his quest was fruitless. The Duke of Albemarle and others furnished him with a second vessel and he located a wreck and took from it gold and silver treasure estimated at a value of three hundred thousand pounds, and as a reward for his services he was allotted about one- twentieth of the treasure, making his share about sixteen thousand pounds. He was also knighted and made sheriff of the province of New England. In 1600 the Colony of Massa- chusetts Bay made him commander of a fleet of eight vessels and sent him against the French settlement at Port Royal in Acadia, and he succeeded in capturing the place. This impelled the general court to fit out a fleet of thirty-four vessels manned by two thousand men and he proceeded against Quebec, but was repulsed by Count Frontenac, the French commander of the fortress, and on his way

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back to Boston he lost nine of his ships by shipwrecks. He was made governor of Massachusetts under the charter of 1692, and cne of his first popular movements was to commission a special court for the trial of those accused of witchcraft, and after a ses- sion of some months the court was suspended, the witchcraft excitement having been quelled hy its existence. His training as a sea captain and commander of fleets had cultivated a spirit of domineering and bluff action towards his fellow officials in the service of the govern- ment, and this brought him to England in 1694 by summons to answer complainers against his overbearing and in some instances brutal conduct. and while there he died of malignant fever in 1695. For the purpose of reaching other lines of the family genealogy, we begin with the Hinckley genealogy which follows : (J) Samuel Hinckley, a native of Tenter- den. Kent, England, was a passenger in the ship "Hercules" of Sandwich, England, in 1634, and landed in Plymouth Colony, settling at Scituate with his wife Sarah and four chil- dren, and in 1639 he removed to Barnstable where he died in 1662.

( II) Thomas son of Samuel and Sarah Hinckley, was born in Tenterden, England, about 1618, and came with his father and fam- ily to Scituate, Plymouth Colony, in 1634, and removed with them to Barnstable in 1639. He was elected deputy of Plymouth Colony in 1645, a representative in the general court in 1647. and was magistrate and assistant, 1658- 80. In 1680 he was elected governor of Plymouth Colony as successor to Governor Winslow, deceased, and except during Gover- nor Andros's administration, 1687-91, he was chief magistrate of the colony up to the time of its union with Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692. He served as commissioner of the colony, 1672-93, and as councillor of the gen- eral court of Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1692- 1706. He collected valuable information on the affairs of Plymouth Colony, published in three volumes in the Old Smith collection of the Rev. Thomas Prince which were placed in the Boston Public Library in 1866. Gover- nor Hinckley married (first) Mary Richards; (second) Mary Glover. He died in Barn- stable, Massachusetts, April 25, 1706.

(III) Samuel, son of Governor Thomas and Mary ( Richards) Hinckley, was born in Barn- stable. Massachusetts. 1652, died in 1697. He married. November 13, 1676, Sarah, daughter of Thomas and Sarah (Jenney) Pope, of

Plymouth. She was born February 14, 1652. She married (second) August 17, 1698, Thomas Huckins; she was the mother of twelve children.

(IV) Job, son of Samuel and Sarah ( Pope) Hinckley, was born in Barnstable, Massachu- setts, February 16, 1688. He married Sarah, daughter of Captain Peter and Mary (Cotton) Tufts, of Medford, granddaughter of Rev. Seaborn and Dorothy ( Bradstreet) Cotton, great-granddaughter of Governor Simon and Anne (Dudley) Bradstreet and of John Cot- ton, born in Derby, England, 1585, and great- great-granddaughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, born in England, 1576, died in Rox- bury, Massachusetts, 1653.

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Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 59

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848- Publication date: 1910 Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company Number of Pages: 924

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924