Bio:William Hosea Ballou

His father, a Methodist clergyman, died in 1863, leaving the son and mother in strained circumstances. He has educated in New York, then entered the service of the United States Lake Survey and of the Mississippi River. In 1876 he was recorder of the scientific survey of Niagara Falls and Canyon. While in the Mississippi River service, he made archaeological collections for the Smithsonian Institution. In 1879 he entered Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois, focusing somewhat on the natural sciences. While there, he was a correspondent of Chicago dailies, and an assistant literary editor of one of them. His first magazine article was published in the American Naturalist, while he was in the University. In 1881, he left the University and went into journalism. He published widely in various forms, including natural history. He wrote of himself: "His favorite work is the novel, and, as he abhors realism in fiction, he exerts his creative thought in the direction of a new school."

Year of death via The letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 3 and Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, Volume 19, Number 3 (Winter 2002). --Dirk P Broer 09:26, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

From the genealogical records of his family.

Date of death via genforum.genealogy.com.--Dirk P Broer 09:33, 30 September 2012 (UTC)