Detail: Kennebec River Region

Ephraim Ballard surveyed many of the boundaries around the Kennebec River for the Kennebec Proprietors. Local squatters, who considered themselves settlers, saw surveyors like Ephraim as the tools of absentee land speculators. Martha Ballard wrote in her diary that squatters disguised as "white Indians" attacked Ephraim and broke his equipment. The diary also tells us that once she moved to Maine, Martha rarely left Hallowell and Augusta.