Ernest Ballard was born in Tennessee in 1862 and came to nearby Flint Idaho in 1886 after mining and railroading in Colorado. It was there he met and married Nellie Stevens, daughter of longtime Owyhee County pioneers, Mr. and Mrs. William Stevens. Ernest and Nellie had three children, two infants who are buried here, and a son who was six in 1900 when the census was taken. Little Isabella died at nine months of age. She had been ill for some time, suffering from troubles common in young childhood. An infant son is also laid to rest here.
After trying his hand at mining throughout the prominent mining localities of the slope, Ernest moved to Silver City and was elected county sheriff for a year followed by a district clerk position. The Ballard's later moved near the Arrow Rock dam where Ernest was superintendent and worked for 20 years. He died in Boise in 1935 at the age of 73.
Nellie Ballard’s father, William Stevens, died in 1898 at her home and is buried to the right of the Johns' gravestone.