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M. D. Ball

American politician (1835-1887)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ16062752 ↗
Source-derived summary

Mottrom Dulany Ball (June 23, 1835 – September 13, 1887) was an American lawyer, newspaper publisher, Confederate Army officer and collector of customs for the United States Department of the Treasury. From March 27, 1878, to June 13, 1879, he was the highest-ranking federal official in the Department of Alaska, making him the de facto governor of the territory.

Early life

Mottrom Dulany Ball was born in 1835 at Oak Mount in Falls Church, Fairfax County, Virginia, to Mary (née Dulany) and Spencer Mottrom Ball. Ball was educated at Episcopal High School in Alexandria. He graduated from the College of William and Mary with a Bachelor of Arts on July 4, 1854. He was a member of Theta Delta Chi. After serving in the Civil War, he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the College of William and Mary on July 4, 1867.

Career

Ball served as lieutenant colonel of the 11th Virginia Cavalry Regiment in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Ball moved to Alexandria and practiced law with his uncle William Heath Dulany. For a time, he also practiced law in Baltimore.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “M. D. Ball” is american politician (1835-1887). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ball, American and politician, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1835, 1887, 1878, 1879—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1835-06-23. For this dossier, Ball, American and politician is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american politician (1835-1887)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16062752. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1835, 1887, 1878 and 1879.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “M. D. Ball”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow M. D. Ball primary sources, M. D. Ball archive and Ball research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “M. D. Ball”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “M. D. Ball” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.