Samuel Ball (2024)

There are no known photos or etchings of an early Loyalist Black settler named Samuel Ball. That wouldn’t be so unusual if it wasn’t for the fact that Ball — a cabbage farmer who lived for decades on Oak Island on Lot 13, — was one of the richest men in the province. You only have to hear the location of Oak Island to form a theory as to how Ball became so wealthy. It’s doubtful his cabbage business was that great.

Biography

^[1]^[2]Samuel was born in 1765 in SC. He could have been connected to the "Wambaw" Elias Ball family of Charleston, SC. This is a very interesting read, "Recollections of the Ball Family of South Carolina and the Comingtee Plantation", Slaves in the Family, By Edward Ball. Some internet Trees have Samuel's birth location as Comingtee, SC. "In the 167 years between 1698 and 1865, the Ball family owned more than twenty rice plantations in Lowcountry South Carolina and enslaved nearly 4,000 Africans and African Americans." The correct "Elias" as the holder of Samuel could be "Second Elias". A look at the information from LowCountry Africana doesn't show information as far back as Second Elias, thought that information may not have been transcribed at this time. Since there were over 600 enslaved when Second Elias passed away looking for Schedules would hopefully shed light on Samuel Ball's origins and holder.

In November of 1775, the Governor of Virginia John Murray declared that any slave who joined the British forces and stood against the rebel insurgency would be given his freedom. Given this promise of land and his release, the teenage Ball fought with the British troops during the revolution, having joined in his native South Carolina under Lord Cornwallis and then serving under General Clinton in New York. He was finally ordered to Bergen Point in the Jerseys under Major Thomas Ward. Between 1776 and 1783 the British forces occupied New York where thousands of families loyal to the Crown fled seeking sanctuary after having their property seized by the rebels. The men of these families, alongside many escaped slaves, were enlisted into loyalist regiments and companies. By the winter of 1779–1780, the city of New York was almost entirely out of wood, with by all accounts not a single tree being left on Manhattan Island. Ward and Cuyler identified New York’s lack of wood as the ideal source of revenue and Bergen Neck as the best source of the raw materials needed, putting out a call for men in 1779. The unit was untrained in military procedure, and the company was employed in pioneer duties, including the central purpose of cutting firewood alongside other assorted engineering duties. Pioneer units served as early military engineers, scouts and raiders, often working in dangerous and extreme situations under heavy enemy fire. However, alongside their official duties, the unit soon realised that they could increase their income by staging raids throughout the local area, confiscating rebel-held livestock, horses and personal possessions and selling them on for profit. Major Ward’s unit, commonly known as Ward’s Green-Coats, unsurprisingly became particularly notorious and unpopular in the area, with Ward described as a vicious plunderer. The Green-Coats were said to have brought nothing but terror to the local population and the Loyal Refugee Volunteers were seen as little more than bandits. One particularly uncharitable piece of correspondence on Major Ward declared that “those associates with him were negroes, and vile creatures of his own race.” Ball meanwhile had arrived in Shelburne as part of the three thousand Black Loyalists who were settled in Canada at the end of the war, mostly, like Samuel, in Nova Scotia. The black loyalists founded Birchtown next to Shelbourne, and the community would be the largest settlement of free black citizens outside of Africa across the entire globe. The black loyalists had to endure long waits for their allocation of land and were granted less than their white counterparts, they also faced massive discrimination from fellow colonists including from those who had brought their slaves from America.

Just how much wealth that Ball could claim at this point is debatable. A regular soldier would not have had many possessions or much finance at this stage of his life. Soldiers were paid around two to three pence a week for their service in the British forces. However, Ball’s service with Major Ward and the division of “loot” amongst the entire unit may have allowed him more coin in his pocket than most other veterans of comparative rank. Under Major Ward, everyone who took part in a raid received a share of the spoils. A smaller percentage was provided to those who had remained at the blockhouse, the same being done with profits from the lumber enterprise. Shares went to each man involved in the cutting and collection to the wood, with all claims dependent on rank. There has been some speculation that Samual Ball was a grenadier, based off an artefact recovered on Oak Island by metal detectorist Gary Drayton, as depicted in the History Channel’s The Curse of Oak Island. The artefact was suggested to be from the butt of a pistol by Drayton, and online researchers have speculated that the tag is in fact broken in half, with the full label having originally read “Samuel Ball, Grenadiers”, having instead perhaps have come from a rifle. While it might seem likely that any encampment on the island by British forces would have taken place sometime between 1727 and 1760, the years of George II’s reign, we cannot rule out that the camp was from a later date and that the tag did indeed come from Samuel Ball. If the tag was truly once the property of Ball, was it discarded at a later date to the other items found? Did he camp here with other soldiers sometime after his evacuation to Nova Scotia? Perhaps further excavations at the site in the future might reveal new data that can better pinpoint both a time and purpose for the camp.

In July of 1794 mobs of landless white settlers attacked black loyalists and government officials during the Shelbourne Riots, also encompassing Birchtown. Dozens of black homes were destroyed and looted. Black citizens were forced almost entirely from Shelbourne and into Birchtown, segregating the communities and depriving black loyalists of jobs and employment in the more prosperous Shelbourne. It is during 1794 that Samual Ball is known to have arrived in Chester. Could he have been forced to flee the Shelbourne area before or following the insurrection?

Chester at this time was known as a particular hive of smuggling and privateering, yet likely offered better opportunities and jobs, particularly in farming, than places like Shelburne. Eventually, Ball settled on Oak Island in 1787, where according to accounts the famous Money Pit was discovered in 1795. Two years later in 1797 (April 27) Samual marries a young woman, Mary, and has three children Andrew, Samuel and Mary, all born in Chester. The 1791 census returns show that Ball’s neighbours on the island included Donald McInnis, John Munro and Neil McMullen. Donald McInnis, who like Samuel Ball is a refugee from the American Revolutionary War, is in-fact the Daniel McInnis who will soon make the discovery of a lifetime. It seems likely that Samuel was well acquainted with at least two of the finders of the money pit, appearing to have struck up a friendship with the Vaughn family in particular. Owning lot 5, Vaughn was a neighbour to Ball, and he purchased land from the family, even having Anthony Vaughn as one of the executors of his will. The History of Lunenburg County also recalls that Ball was one of the first people summoned by Daniel McInnis upon the discovery of the Money Pit. It is worth noting that McInnis was also in Shelburne at the same time as Ball, purchasing a lot in the town in 1784 and also moving on to Chester where Samuel Ball would also relocate. Had the two men perhaps known each other in Shelburne, Chester and now Oak Island? After living in the area for a total of 23 years, Ball petitioned the government for the land promised to former slaves in 1809 and was granted four acres more on Oak Island.

Ball now owned nine lots on the island, namely lots 6, 7, 8, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, and 32, a total of 36 acres which he and servant Issac Butler worked as a cabbage farm alongside other crops and a selection of cattle, his home being situated on lot 25. In all Ball would own approximately 100 acres of land as well as Hook Island, which he purchased in 1790. Here he would find the treasure. The island, a three-acre piece of land not far from Oak Island, was bought from Daniel Vaughn for the sum of five pounds. Following his death, the island passed to Issac Butler and was eventually sold to Archibald Rafuse in 1884, currently being in private hands and, to all knowledge, having ever undergone an archaeological search. Hook Island is today known as “Sam’s Island.” Daniel Vaughn, brother to Anthony Vaughan Sr (One of the original Oak Island inhabitants as the owner of lots 15 and 17) and uncle of Anthony Vaughn was a privateer in the employ of the British. In 1793 Daniel sold his own lot on the island and set up a shipbuilding business in St. Martin, the same St. Martin where there were numerous rumors of smuggling, just like in Chester. This alone might not be notable except for the fact that Oak Island had yet more connections to privateering, even excluding Samuel Ball’s land misadventures with Major Thomas Ward’s Green Coats.

Samuel Ball died on December 14, 1845, at the age of 81, being survived at least by his then-wife Catherine (with no record of what happened to Mary) and a grandson Simeon, both named in the will. Also named in the will was Issac Butler, to whom Ball bequeathed his land, including the aforementioned Hook Island.

Will

Quoted exactly:

Mystery

Samuel Ball is known for his great mystery, a mystery that researchers today are speculating. How did he go from poor to rich? we may never know.... But what we do know, is that he most likely found the treasure.