Martha (Moore) Ballard
One of the great women of Kennebec County, has been immortalized with the publishing of "A Midwife's Tale, The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on her Diary 1785-1812" by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, published by Vintage in 1990.
Martha Moore Ballad was b. 09 February 1734/35, in Oxford, Massachusetts to Elijah Moore and Dorothy Learned Moore. Martha married in 1754, Ephraim Ballard. She died before 31 May 1812 in Hallowell/Augusta, Maine.
"...the real story of her life begins in Maine with the diary she kept along the Kennebec. Without her diary her biography would be little more than a succession of date. Her birth in 1735. Her marriage to Ephraim Ballard in 1754. The birth of their nine children in 1756, 1758, 1761, 1763, 1765, 1767, 1769, 1772, 1779, and the deaths of three of them in 1769. Her own death in 1812. The American Advocate for June 8, 1812, summed up her life in one sentence: "Died in Augusta, Mrs. Martha, consort of Mr. Ephraim Ballard, aged 77 years." Without the diary we would know nothing of her life after the last of her children were born, nothing of the 816 deliveries she performed betwen 1785 and 1812. We would not even be certain that she had been a midwife."
"A Midwife's Tale, The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on her Diary 1785-1812" by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, published by Vintage in 1990. p. 5.
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