Ephraim was born May 17, 1725 in Billerica, Massachusetts, then moved with his parents to Oxford the following year. In 1754 he married Martha Moore, better known today as Martha Ballard, who kept a diary of her life as a midwife and citizen in Hallowell.
He journeyed from Massachusetts up the Kennebec River and leased some property at Fort Halifax, now Winslow, in 1775. In those heady revolutionary days, he was suspected of being a loyalist and was driven out by the local Committee of Safety.
Partially confirming earlier suspicions, in 1776 he retreated to Hallowell where he managed land and mills for one John Jones, himself a loyalist.
Apparently overcoming local misgivings, Ballard became a selectman in Hallowell serving from 1784 through 1787. A prominent local resident, he is frequently mentioned in the town’s records, which are still available for research.
Ballard was one of the principal surveyors for the Kennebec Proprietors, also known as the Plymouth Company. They owned more than 600,000 acres of land along the Kennebec River and played a key role in founding several of the surrounding towns. His name appears on hundreds of maps in the area, and of such far-flung locations as Canaan, Lincoln Plantation, Bangor, Magalloway Plantation, Eustis, and Dover-Foxcroft.
In 1804 he was sentenced to jail for not collecting the full amount of taxes as required in his position of tax collector. He served several months.