More Smyrna History

After reading Gunner’s school project on the streets of Smyrna, I decided to do a little research of my own into the history of our town. I’ve passed Baller Rd at least a hundred times but never knew where the name came from.

So I went to the library. There’s a book I found titled “An Abbreviated History of Middle Tennessee” that mentions the Ballers as being a somewhat successful mid-1800’s Smyrna family.

The patriarch of the family, Arnold P. Baller, moved to Smyrna from Virginia in the 1840s, looking for a new life and a woman to share it with. In the 1850s, Arnold courted and then married Jill Mellon, a feminist pioneer. Interestingly, court records record Jill’s married name as “Mellon-Baller,” which may be one of the earliest uses of the now ubiquitous hyphenated last name.

They had three children, Gregory, Charles and April. Not much is mentioned about the boys, but during the Civil War, a newspaper records that as a teenager April fools three Union scouts by skinny-dipping in Stewart’s Creek, attracting their attention. While the soldiers were playing “peeping tom,” April’s friend Missy stole their messenger bags, preventing them from providing intelligence on Confederate troop movements to the Union commanders.

In 1872, a commemorative statue of the event was unveiled by the The Confederate Naturist Society, but was quickly covered again amidst outcry.

Sadly, the Baller family has now passed into history… but the street name remains, a silent testimony to a Virginian pioneer’s almost-lost legacy.

Thank you, Gunner, for inspiring me to start digging.