This site is sponsored by "The Mayors Committee for Martha Ballard, 18th-century midwife. The committee was formed by a citizen’s initiative recognizing Martha’s outstanding community contributions. A commemorative site and monument honoring her memory and ensuring her importance are planned overlooking the Kennebec River and Bond Brook, Augusta, Maine at the southern corner of Mill Park. Martha’s home was less than a thousand feet at Jones Mill on Bond Brook in the 1780s. Special fundraising events will be scheduled for the continuing project.
Members of the City Of Augusta, Maine Mayor’s Committee are Laurier Fleury (chair), Earl Kingsbury (City Liaison), Jamie Logan (Secretary), Sisters Ruth, and Glee Ballard, 6th. Great-granddaughters of Martha Ballard, Rachel Merriam, Stephen Arbour, City Councilor Courtney Allen, City Councilor Heather Pouliot, and Joseph Owen.
Martha Ballard was an 18th-century pioneer midwife in colonial America that would later become the state of Maine. She lived as a woman of conviction often acting as a defender of women.
She was an avid diarist writing nearly one thousand entries covering close to three decades of her life. Her diary was later adapted into a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "A Midwife's Tale: the life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary,1785-1812.
Martha mentored young girls in the art of homemaking, and midwifery and grew an extensive medicinal herb and botanical garden used to heal people.
About the Monument
The committee believes that it is vital to finally recognize a woman who has given so much during so many difficult times during the formation of Colonial America. The memorial site chosen is prominent and important, as her home was less than a thousand feet west of the site, on the banks of Bond Brook, just upstream. The arched granite bridge her grandson oversaw the construction of around 1851 as a town official is connected to the granite wall that the site overlooks. Also key to the site are Bond Brook and the Kennebec River which she crossed frequently at her peril, by canoe in cold rapids and over broken ice. This made any crossing extremely dangerous. We feel that the community should be in remembrance of this courageous and strong-willed woman.
Photo by Joseph Owen
Larry Fleury, left, chairman of the Mayor's Committee for Martha Ballard, listens June 2 at an Augusta City Council meeting as Mayor Mark O'Brien reads a proclamation designating June as Martha Ballard month in Augusta.
Photos by Larry Fleury