Harnett-Wayne County NcArchives Biographies.....Ballance, John Henry 1863 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/ncfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 March 2, 2008, 7:07 pm Author: Leonard Wilson (1916) JOHN HENRY BALLANCE BALLANCE is an English family name found in that great middle class in England, which, by its labors, both at home and abroad, has, during the last five centuries, contributed so much to the making of the British Empire. It is the lack of the corresponding class in other countries which has enabled England to forge to the front. It is largely from this class of Englishmen that have come those bold spirits who have been ever ready to go into far distant and new fields, undeterred by difficulties of climate or barbarous peoples. John Henry Ballance, of Dunn, North Carolina, is a present day representative of this Ballance family, who has exhibited all the strong qualities of the class from which he is descended. John Henry Ballance was born at Fremont, Wayne County, North Carolina, April 6, 1863, son of Harry Bryant and Ava A. (Jones) Ballance. Harry Bryant Ballance was a merchant and farmer, but those were fearsome days in North Carolina, and the son grew up with no other educational advantages than were to be found in a few short terms in the country schools. His life was spent on the farm until October, 1885, when he engaged in mercantile business with D. D. Peele, under the firm name of Peele and Ballance. In October, 1886, Dr. E. E. Cox purchased Peele's interest and the firm became Cox and Ballance. In October, 1887, they sold this establishment, and in January, 1888, they formed a partnership to trade in horses and mules, Mr. Ballance being the manager, operating in Dunn. In 1890, Winslow Brothers, then of Goldsboro, North Carolina, now of Kansas City, bought Dr. Cox's interest, the firm name now being J. H. Ballance and Company. In 1892, Mr. Ballance sold his interest in the trade and removed to a farm which he had purchased, where he remained for two years, when he returned to Dunn, engaging again in the live stock business with T. L. Gerald and Winslow Brothers as partners. They operated under the firm name of J. H. Ballance and Company until 1904, when the firm was succeeded by J. H. Ballance, who directed the business himself until 1911, at which time he took into partnership James B. Lee and L. H. Lee, Jr. Mr. Ballance has had an unusual experience. He says that all his relations have been pleasant with his various partners and that his business has been uniformly profitable. From 1906 to 1911 he was interested in the lumber business with Mr. G. L. Pope as partner, under the firm name of Pope and Ballance, and in this partnership he had the same experience as in the others. This brief report indicates very clearly that Mr. Ballance is a fair man in his dealings, otherwise he would not have found it easy to work through these many years amicably with so many different associates. He has made a substantial success of his commercial operations, and his business qualifications have gained recognition in his community, as shown by his election as Vice-President of the Dunn Banking Company and as Vice-President of the First National Bank of Dunn. He is also an Alderman of the town, and has served as a United States Deputy Marshal. His business code is short and pithy, and can be very briefly summarized in one paragraph, which is this: "Don't borrow more than you can pay back promptly. Discount your bills; you can buy goods cheaper and you can never be in any danger of bankruptcy." He married near Newton Grove, North Carolina, October 22, 1890, Electa Lee, daughter of Jeremiah and Kitsy Lee. The first record we have of the Ballance family in America is of John Ballance, who came to Virginia, on the ship "Merchants' Hope," in July, 1635, a youth of nineteen. He evidently became the founder of a family, for, though the name disappeared from Virginia, it is found in eastern North Carolina in 1728, when the Commissioners who were settling the boundary between the Colonies of Virginia and North Carolina encamped overnight on Robert Ballance's plantation, a little to the southward of Northwest River bridge. This was in Currituck County. At a meeting of the Council held at New Bern, November 22, 1744, among the list of petitioners for land grants was James Ballance, for two hundred acres of land in Currituck. The next evidence of the activity of the family is the record of Leven Ballance, who was a Revolutionary soldier, and who received a pension after the war. The family had greatly multiplied by the Revolutionary period, and among the heads of families appeared in Craven County, Benjamin and Joshua Ballance, and in Currituck County, Daniel, Jervan, William, Thomas. John and Willis Ballance. Evidently they belonged to that class of steady-going farmers who, despite all backsets, have finally built up in North Carolina the progressive State of the South. One branch of the family moved west into Kentucky. A son of that branch was one of the early settlers at Peoria, Illinois, who became very prominent there, having served in the Black Hawk Indian War, and having been Mayor of the town. His son, or grandson, John Green Ballance, entered West Point in 1871, and was commissioned an Officer in the Regular Army in 1875. Still further west, in Denver, Colorado, for a number of years Robert Ballance was General Foreman of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. He may have been an offshoot from this Illinois family. A great man of this name, and one of the greatest men of the nineteenth century, is almost unknown in America. An Englishman born, and graduated at Oxford University, he went to New Zealand with high ideals and with a frail body. Men called him a dreamer; others, less charitable, called him a socialist and an anarchist, but the event has proven that John Ballance. of New Zealand, was one of the greatest statesmen of the century. He found one of the most beautiful and fertile countries of the world in the grasp of a few selfish landowners, the individual holdings of quite a number of them running into millions of acres each. They had strangled the industries of the country and reduced the people to poverty in order to accumulate millions of money for themselves. Ballance had far-reaching schemes of reform and fought a one-sided battle with these land barons. They easily defeated him in the first struggle, but the conditions favored him. He attracted to his assistance Richard Seddon, a self-made man, who had commenced life as a miner. Seddon had the physical strength which Ballance lacked, and with that strength an iron will. In 1890 they won the battle at the polls, overturned the old administration in New Zealand, and Ballance became Premier. He did not live to see the fruits of victory, but, foreseeing the shortness of his time, he laid down all the plans and impressed the facts upon Seddon's mind. John Ballance died in 1892. The land barons were greatly pleased at his demise, because they conceived the idea that he had no successor. Seddon, however, became Premier and held power for fifteen years, which was sufficient to wear out even his great strength, and when he died, a few years back, he left New Zealand the most prosperous country on the globe, the most advanced in its institutions, and with the most enlightened voting population. It is to-day the most purely democratic country in the world, and its economic system is an admirable model which might be copied with advantage by other countries. New Zealand owes all to John Ballance and to his successor, Dick Seddon, but Ballance was the genius that planned everything and foresaw everything, and his memory is cherished in that country even as we cherish that of George Washington. Additional Comments: Extracted from: MAKERS OF AMERICA BIOGRAPHIES OF LEADING MEN OF THOUGHT AND ACTION THE MEN WHO CONSTITUTE THE BONE AND SINEW OF AMERICAN PROSPERITY AND LIFE VOLUME II By LEONARD WILSON, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ASSISTED BY PROMINENT HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WRITERS Illustrated with many full page engravings B. F. JOHNSON, INC. CITY OF WASHINGTON, U. S. A. 1916 Copyright, 1916 by B. F. Johnson, Inc. Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/harnett/photos/bios/ballance64gbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nc/harnett/bios/ballance64gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ncfiles/ File size: 8.8 Kb