Collection Details:

Creator/Collector: Henry Waring Ball.
Date(s): 1884-1888; 1892-1895; 1899; 1920s; 1939.
Size: 0.10 cubic feet.
Language(s): English.
Processed by: MDAH staff; Reprocessed by Laura Heller, 2023.
Provenance: Received by the Department on September 41, 1922.
Repository: Archives & Records Services Division, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Rights and Access:

Access restrictions: Collection is open for research.

Publication rights: Copyright assigned to the MDAH. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to Reference Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the MDAH as the owner of the physical items and as the owner of the copyright in items created by the donor. Although the copyright was transferred by the donor, the respective creator may still hold copyright in some items in the collection. For further information, contact Reference Services.

Copyright Notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Preferred citation: Henry Waring Ball Typescripts (Z/0324), Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

See also:
Henry Waring Ball Letters (Z/1842), Mississippi Department of Archives & History.
Henry Waring Ball Diaries (Z/1841), Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Biography:
Henry Waring Ball

Henry Waring Ball was born to Lavinia Bateman (1830-) and Dr. Spencer Mottrom (1826-1888) on November 3, 1859, at Argyle Plantation near Greenville, Washington County, Mississippi. He was a descendant of Mary Ball Washington, mother of George Washington. Ball had one sister, Lavinia Ball Yerger (1860-1952), and two brothers, William Lee Ball (1864-1889) and Spencer Mottram Ball II (1861). The latter died in infancy.

Henry Waring Ball attended a preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland, and later graduated from the law school of the University of Virginia. He practiced law at Clarendon, Arkansas, but later left because of the presence of yellow fever in the area. Ball moved to Greenville to be near his father, and he became a journalist and newspaper editor. During his career, he was associated with The Greenville Times, Greenville, Mississippi; The Vicksburg Daily American, Vicksburg, Mississippi; and The Meridian Star, Meridian, Mississippi. He was also the city and telegraph editor of The Vicksburg Herald. From the 1870s to the 1890s, Ball would comment in his diaries about his romantic relationships with specific men, including his neighbor William Armstrong Percy. Considering the societal conventions of the time, men were able to have same-sex emotional or physical relationships without the stigma of being homosexual, as author Benjamin E. Wise states in his book titled William Alexander Percy: The Curious Life of a Mississippi Planter and Sexual Freethinker (2014).

Henry Waring Ball married Eleanor Carter Randolph (1870-1955) on April 27, 1916, at Inness Hill, in Warrenton, Virginia. Ball retired from the newspaper business in 1919 to manage his plantation near Leland, Mississippi. He died in Greenville on June 21, 1934, and was buried in the Greenville Cemetery.

 

Scope and Content Note:

Diary (typewritten copy) of Henry Waring Ball who lived in Clarendon, Arkansas, from January 1884 to October 1886 and then moved to Greenville. The diary begins on January 1, 1884, and ends on October 6, 1899, skipping the years 1889-1891 and 1896-1898. The other volume is entitled Record of the Ball Family of Virginia, and was compiled by Henry Waring Ball. This also contains sections on the Randolph, Carter, and other families.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Henry Waring Ball Diary Typescript, 1884-1888; 1892-1895; 1899.

Diary (typewritten copy) of Henry Waring Ball who lived in Clarendon, Arkansas, from January 1884 to October 1886 and then moved to Greenville. The diary begins on January 1, 1884, and ends on October 6, 1899. The diary contains 71 pages (pp. 1-40, 47-77), with pages 41-46 missing when it was donated. The original diaries for these dates are located in Henry Waring Ball Diaries (Z/1841).

Box 1, Folders 1-2

 

Series 2: Genealogy Typescript, circa 1920; 1939.

This typescript is entitled Record of the Ball Family of Virginia. This also contains sections on the Randolph, Carter, and other families. The volume apparently was compiled after 1920, and it contains notes by the copyist made in 1939. The typescript contains 64 pages. Henry Waring Ball compiled the original handwritten genealogical notes in volume 15, Genealogy, located in Henry Waring Ball Diaries (Z/1841).

Box 1, Folders 3-5

 

Box List:

Box 1
Folder 1: Henry Waring Ball Diary, Typescript, January 1, 1884-May 22, 1888, pages 1-40.
Folder 2: Henry Waring Ball Diary, Typescript, January 22, 1892-January 21, 1895; February 13, 1899-October 6, 1899 pages 47-77.
Folder 3: Ball Family, Genealogy Typescript, pages 1-49.
Folder 4: Randolph Family, Genealogy Typescript, pages 50-53.
Folder 5: Carter Family and Rival First Families of Virginia, Genealogy Typescript, pages 54-64.