Author: Steven Glynn Mallory
Balaam Ezell was born on October 7, 1756, the sixth child and fifth son of Thomas and Anne Ezell of Sussex County, Virginia. Little is known about
his life before the Revolutionary War. However, the record of his pension testimony in Trigg County on September 17, 1832, provides a few details
about his wartime service.
In October 1776, shortly after his twentieth birthday, he volunteered in the militia under the command of Captian Gray Judkins and Lt. Hartman Webb. His entire service consisted of three short tours throughout the war. One of which was at Yorktown, the site of the British surrender in 1781. While at Yorktown his company was placed in command of General Thomas Nelson, the commander of the lower Virginia militia, signer of the
Declaration of Independence and the man who would succeed Thomas Jefferson as the Governor of Virginia.
Most of his seven months of service consisted of the important task of building earthworks and trenches, and, guard duty. He was dismissed from
service at Smithfield Virginia on May 11, 1781.
Balaam Ezell's first wife was Lydia Seat who died sometime before December 27, 1803 when he married his second wife, Elizabeth Hamblin.
He brought his family to Kentucky by 1815. He received two land grants along the Muddy Fork River on December 19, 1815. One grant was for
twenty-two acres and the other was for seventeen acres. Balaam Ezell was a Primitive Baptist minister in Virginia and also in
Kentucky. He was often referred to as the Elder Ezell and was described as " a man of God and a faithful servant of his people". After arriving in
Kentucky, he was affiliated with the Muddy Fork Church which began in 1806.
After his second wife Elizabeth died sometime after 1830, he married his third wife Jane Stowe on September 26, 1833 at the age of seventy-seven.
Balaam died some time after August 22, 1844.