Ball-Sellers House

John Ball was a farmer living in what is now Arlington, Virginia in the mid-1700s. The log cabin he constructed still stands where he built it over 260 years ago. Its oak clapboard roof is a rare example of a preserved board roof in the United States.

Ball and his wife Elizabeth raised five children in the humble home and kept busy farming crops, raising livestock, keeping bees, and operating a mill on Four Mile Run on the 166 acres of land Ball obtained from Lord Fairfax. Stones from that mill are in display at the house.

After Ball’s passing in 1766, the next owner of the house was tailor William Carlin, who counted among his clientele both George Washington and George Mason. The house remained in the Carlin family for over a century. The addition was added in 1885 by siblings Andrew and Anne, who sold the house two years later.

The last private owner of the home, Marian Rhinehart Sellers, bequeathed the home to the Arlington Historical Society in 1975 to preserve it as an important piece of Arlington history.