After they settled in Auburn he gave up the practice of medicine. In addition to the work of clearing up the farm he made nearly everything that was used about the house and farm for the first few years. He was a strong believer in education and was the prime mover in building the first log schoolhouse to give the children three months' schooling each year. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church and built the first church of that denomination in Auburn. He was vice- president of the First National Bank in Auburn.7

Shortly after her mother's death she was taken to Knox County, Ill., where she lived with relatives until about 1854, when she returned to New Jersey, where she met Dr. Levi W. Ballard. Soon after their marriage they started for Oregon, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and landed at Portland. From there they moved by ox teams to the Looking-glass Valley, near Roseburg, and settled on a ranch of wild land, where they lived for about three years, and then moved to Wilbur, Ore., where she kept boarders, who were attending the high school, while he was absent at the placer gold mines in Bannock and Boise, Idaho. In the spring of 1865 they moved by wagon to Puget Sound and settled in a place called Slaughter, afterwards renamed Auburn, about twenty miles south of Seattle. As there was no road to Seattle, all transportation was carried on in canoes on White River. The land was covered with trees and brush, and until they were grubbed out they underwent great hardship and privations trying to raise enough to meet their wants. The land was finally cleared and later a railroad was extended through the property and on the homestead the town of Auburn was laid out. She was the principal in building the first Methodist church in Auburn, in organizing and maintaining a Good Templar lodge for the young, the home being a center for all movements for the public welfare. Some time before her death Mrs. Ballard transferred her church membership to her husband's church, where she continued her Christian activities. She died March 1909, mourned by all her relatives and friends in the community.7