Captain C. E. Ball, Rapides Parish, Louisiana 
Submitted by: Gaytha Carver Thompson 

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Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana Nashville and 
Chicago, The Southern Publishing Company 1890    

CAPT. C. E. BALL  
Capt. C. E. Ball, a leading citizen of Pineville, was born on Blue Grass soil, 
Union County, in 1827, and was reared and educated in the common schools of that State.  
He served an apprenticeship at the blacksmith's trade in Louisville, followed this trade 
for a short time, and when eighteen years of age became engineer on a steamboat. His 
career as a steamboat man continued from 1848 to 1861, and he was well know from Louisville 
to New Orleans. In 1856 he was married in Rapides Parish, La., to Miss Pauline Talley, a 
native of that parish, and the daughter of Joseph L. and Jane (Chevallier) Talley, the 
mother of French extraction. Mr. Ball abandoned the steamboat business in 1861, just 
as the Civil War broke out, and farmed and managed a mill in Rapides Parish during that 
exciting period. He was not a secessionist, but went with his State. He was second 
lieutenant of Bingam's company of scouts in Richard Taylor's brigade, and served about 
three months, participating in the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill and a number 
of skirmishes. He never moved out of the parish. He afterward engaged in saw milling, 
and has been in this business ever since. He commenced in a small way and handled pine 
lumber until a short time ago. He now has cypress shingles. The capacity of his mill 
is 60,000 feet per day, and he employs twenty two hands in his timber and mill. He 
ships to all points where there is a demand, Kansas City, Dallas, Omaha, etc. He is the 
father of the following children: Lewis E., Elizabeth J., Mary B. (Died at the age of 
twenty seven years), Caroline F. (Wife of Ed Hopkins, of Pineville), Robert Lee Ball, 
Amelia E., John W., James F., Joseph Talley, Sallie R. and Julius J. Mr. Ball has been 
a Democrat since the war, but before that he was a Whig. His first presidential vote 
was cast for Zachary Taylor in 1848. He is the son of Taswell and Elizabeth (Dyre) Ball, 
the father born in the Old Dominion. The elder Ball emigrated to Kentucky before it 
became a State, was with Daniel Boone, and had a scar across his hand made in a hand to 
hand encounter with an Indian. He however killed the Indian. Mr. Ball was six feet 
two inches in height and was powerfully built. He died in Union County, Ky., at the 
age of forty four years. Grandfather Ball moved to Kentucky with the family and was 
a farmer by occupation. The mother of our subject was born in Union County, Ky., and 
of the four children born to her marriage, only one is now living.  The mother died 
at the age of seventy eight years. The maternal grandfather, William Dyre, was born 
in Virginia, and owned a farm near Morganfield, Ky., where he lived to be quite aged.  
The maternal grandmother, who was Miss McKee, was a native of Cork, Ireland.  
Capt. Ball is wonderfully preserved for a man his age, and has hardly a gray hair in 
his head. He is pleasant and sociable, and a man one like to meet.