For Hampshire woman, our first president is Cousin George

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When Patricia Alice Dickson Thurow of Hampshire celebrates Presidents’ Day on Monday, she’ll be thinking about George Washington, the first president of the United States and one of her relatives from the 1700s. According to her family history, Washington is Thurow’s second cousin seven times removed. February 13, 2012 | Michael Smart~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: March 16, 2012 8:06AM

HAMPSHIRE — When Patricia Alice Dickson Thurow of Hampshire celebrates Presidents Day on Monday, she’ll be thinking about George Washington, the first president of the United States and one of her relatives from the 1700s.

According to her family history, Washington is Thurow’s second cousin seven times removed.

Thurow said she and Washington are both descendants of Colonel William Ball and Hannah Atherold Ball. Members of Thurow’s family once traveled to a church in Suffolk, England, where Hannah’s parents, Thomas and Mary Atherold, are buried under the lectern.

Colonel Ball once owned 300 acres of land in Narrow Neck, now known as Balls Point, on the west side of the Corrotoman River in Virginia. It was known as the Millenbeck Estate. Portions of it remained in the family for six generations.

Colonel Ball and his wife were married in 1638 and had four children: Richard, who died in infancy; William; Joseph; and Hannah.

Washington’s lineage comes from Joseph, who was married twice. Joseph’s second wife, Mary Johnson Ball, gave birth to a daughter whom she named after herself. When the younger Mary grew up, she married Augustine Washington and became the mother of our first president.

George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis. George and Martha never produced any children from their union, but Martha had four children during her first marriage. Her first two children died in childhood. George helped to raise her remaining two children, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis.

Thurow is descended from William, Joseph’s brother. Thurow’s direct descendants in order from the late 1600s to the year 2000 are: Captain Joseph Ball; Colonel Spencer Ball; William Ball; Benjamin Ball; Silas Ball; William Henry Ball; Frank Elijah Ball; and Thurow’s mother, Esther Corolyn Ball Dickson.

Thurow has a booklet of the Ball family genealogy that was compiled by her mother’s niece, CoraLynn Elmer Congdon, and her mother’s great-niece, Doris Alice Dodds Elmer. The booklet offers insights into the lives of their ancestors.

Land, slave owners

The will of Colonel William Ball, written during the late 1600s, shows how rich, white men at that time were the only landowners.

The will divided the colonel’s plantation between his two sons, William and Joseph. To his daughter, Hannah, who married Captain David Fox, he left “only five Shillings Sterl., which is an overplus both of her portion and deserte.”

The will permitted the colonel’s wife to remain on the plantation with all her goods — unless she remarried.

The will gave William and his heirs “my two Negroes called Trine and Kate his Wife, and to my Son, Joseph, and his heires, my Negro Toney and Dinah his Wife, leaveing the Negroe Girle Bess and the Negroe Boy James to my Wife to dispose of betweene my two Sons or their Children.”

President Washington owned slaves at his Mount Vernon plantation. His will decreed that the 124 slaves he owned outright would be set free following his death and the death of his wife. He died in 1799 at the age of 67.

Prisoner of war

During the Civil War years of 1861 to 1865, William Henry Ball enlisted in the 16th Illinois Cavalry. He was captured and spent 11 months in the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia. After the war, he came home to his wife and six children in Illinois. He was living in Sycamore when he died in 1907.

One of William Henry’s sisters, Elizabeth, married Samuel Rowell. He owned property in Kane County, while Elizabeth and her family lived in Kentucky. According to Thurow, Elizabeth’s parents, Silas and Christina Ball, originally objected to their daughter dating Rowell.

In a letter dated June 30, 1840, Rowell wrote: “I expect you have had enough said to you by this time about that Yankee Rowell to make Licking River run upstream, but I think you have a mind of your own which will triumph over all the ingenuous tales that mischief makers can invent and put at defiance the many plots and snares made to turn your affection for me into hatred.”

After they were married in 1844, Samuel and Elizabeth moved to Kane County. Elizabeth’s parents later developed “Illinois fever” and also moved here.

Rowell became Hampshire’s first village president when the town was incorporated in 1876. Rowell also served as a justice of the peace and board president of the local Methodist church.

In addition to the letters Thurow has that were written by Rowell, she also has letters written by Frank Elijah Ball to his wife, Adelaide “Addie” Eugenia Rich Ball, during the late 1800s. The letters mention local occurrences such as a Templars convention in Pingree Grove, weddings in Hampshire, and a ferry boat accident in Elgin.

Thurow’s parents were Gerald Edgar Dickson and Esther Corolyn Ball Dickson. Thurow said her mother was a farm wife, Home Bureau state officer, and a nurse who worked during World War II at Sherman Hospital in Elgin.

Farm wife

Thurow grew up with her family on a farm along Briar Hill Road in Hampshire Township. Her father was one of the founders of Production Credit for farm loans. He had a windmill for electricity in addition to a windmill for water. He also rigged up a device for no-till planting before the practice became popular.

Thurow’s three brothers are Gerald “Jerry” Dickson Jr., James “Jim” Bell Dickson, and John Arnold Dickson.

“Jim was an attorney who went into labor management and Christian work,” Thurow said. “John was a salesman and a teacher. Jerry enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and become a navigator. He also applied to West Point. After he graduated from West Point, he was a pilot and a lieutenant colonel.”

Thurow said her mother was born in 1898. She died in 2000 at the age of 101.

“She lived through three centuries. She was born with the Ball surname,” she said.

Like her mother, Thurow was a farm wife and a nurse. Thurow and her husband, Robert, once farmed 168 acres that were bordered by Routes 47, 20 and 72 in Rutland Township. They later sold the land and moved to Hampshire. They have five children: Robert Jr., Kevin Michael, Dennis Kent, Warren Alan, and Kristen Jane.

Thurow has taken over her mother’s job of family record keeper. In addition to letting her children know about their roots, she wants her 21 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren to treasure their family ties,including their relationship to George Washington.

“The most important legacy passed on to me by my ancestors,” Thurow said, “is a pioneer spirit and faith in God.”