Anson Ballard and Nathaniel Edwards were the first and second husbands of Harriet M. Story of Appleton, Wisconsin. Ballard was born December 20, 1821, in Appling, New York. He attended Hamilton College, graduating in 1845. The collection contains a number of papers from this period, principally letters to members of Psi Upsilon Fraternity in which Ballard was active. After graduation, Ballard taught for five years while studying law, and was admitted to the bar in 1850. In the same year, he moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, where he and Perry H. Smith, a fraternity brother, organized the law firm of Smith and Ballard. Smith was already active in Wisconsin politics, and there are several letters in the collection on the subject.
In May 1851, Ballard married Harriet Story of Appleton, and by the end of the decade, he was thought to be the most substantial citizen of the town, having the largest land holdings in the county. Unfortunately, the collection contains only fragmentary materials for this period.
Ballard retained his interest in teaching and was responsible for establishing a school in Appleton, which, due to the faulty drafting of his will, lost its endowment on his death. He died April 4, 1873, and on May 12, 1874, his widow married Nathaniel Marsh Edwards.
Edwards was born July 5, 1837, in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He graduated from Union College in New York as a civil engineer, and he served in the Civil War, emerging a captain of engineers. In 1866 he went to Appleton to work as an engineer on the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company. He seems to have had an excellent reputation in his profession for there are a number of letters requesting his services as a consultant.
In June 1868, he married Laura M. Whittlesey, and the collection contains many of her letters. Her death two days after the first anniversary of the wedding is, on the other hand, mentioned in none of the correspondence. The collection dwindles in 1873 and there is very little after that. There are no letters referring to Edwards' marriage to Harriet Story Ballard. Although it is difficult to believe that two men as prominent as Ballard and Edwards were not acquainted in a community the size of Appleton, there is nothing in the collection to indicate it.
By far the most voluminous part of the collection covers the period from 1868 to 1872. It contains many letters from the law firm of Stevens and Flower in Madison, which represented a railroad in which Edwards had an interest. There is also a large number of letters concerning a planing mill owned by Edwards and two partners, Lake and Randall. Its failure in 1872 is covered very fully by the correspondence.
