Short Biography of Jonathan Ballou

We suppose these children were all born in Smithfield, RI or its general vicinity, and that the mother died thereabouts not far from the year 1800.

The most we can deduce from it is that Jonathon found himself in desperate circumstances after the death of his wife, resolved on shipping himself for employment on the ocean, and virtually threw his motherless children on the care of near relations. His father, then in Adams, MA, took Emor S. into his own comfortable home, at the age of 3 1/2 years, and probably provided in whole or in part for the others. Their father went to New York to find desirable employment, but misfortune shadowed him. He took the yellow fever, and barely survived it to catch the small pox, but recovered, wrote home a sad letter to his father, and soon after shipped for a voyage to the East Indies. He was never heard from more. It is not probable he had previously been a mariner.

Source: "An Elaborate History and Genealogy of the Ballous in America" ⁵⁹⁸²