Joseph T. Ball

Joseph T. Ball (February 21, 1804 – September 20, 1861) was an early convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a black man who held the priesthood prior to the priesthood ban instituted in 1849. He was also the first black branch president in the church.

Joseph T. Ball was born on February 21, 1804, to Mary Montgomery Drew and Joseph T. Ball, Sr., in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father was an immigrant from Jamaica, and his mother a white woman native to Massachusetts. They had 6 children together, Mary, Joseph, Lucy, Martha, Hannah, and Thomas. His family was said to have been very dedicated to social activism, his father founding a local society to help black widows, and his siblings becoming abolitionists and suffragists. All of his sisters were members of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society.

Ball was baptized into the church in 1832, possibly by Brigham or Joseph Young. The following year, he moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where he was ordained to be an Elder. In 1837, he was called to serve missions in New England and New Jersey with Wilford Woodruff and James Townsend, where they were able to convert around 40 people, including noted overland pioneer William Willard Hutchings. In 1841, he moved to Nauvoo, Illinois with many other members,and three years later, was ordained to the title of a High Priest by his friend William Smith, the brother of Joseph Smith. He was then given the office of Branch President or Presiding Elder over the Boston stake of the church, the largest congregation of saints outside of Nauvoo, on October 7, 1844. The following year, in spring 1845, after being released from his calling, he was asked to work on the construction of the Nauvoo Temple by Parley P. Pratt. While in Illinois, Ball completed several proxy baptisms for his ancestors, and received a patriarchal blessing from William Smith. Sometime in the 1840s, Ball began practicing polygamy without official authorization from Joseph Smith, apparently under instruction from William. In 1845, this came to light and resulted in the end of Ball's relationship with the church.

After Ball left the church, he and William both became involved in the Strangite sect, appearing in their records in 1848. He emigrated back to Massachusetts near the end of his life, where he died of tuberculosis on September 20, 1861. He is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Boston.