Ball, Phinehas, 1824-1894

Phinehas Ball (1824-1894), the son of Manasseh Sawyer and Clarissa (Andrews) Ball, was born on 18 January 1824 in Boylston, Mass. He married, in 1848, Sarah Augusta Holyoke ( -1864), of Marlborough, Mass.; they had two children. In November 1865, he married Mary Jane Otis, daughter of Benjamin B. Otis.

Ball received little formal education; attending the winter's district schools until the age of sixteen and attending two terms at a boarding school in Berlin, Mass., 1841-1842. During the winter of 1840, he was taught surveying by an uncle in Rhode Island, using an old compass which had belonged to this great-great-grandfather.

...