Martha Moore Ballard (February 20, 1735 – May 7, 1812) was an American midwife, healer, and diarist. Unusual for the time, Ballard kept a diary with hundreds of entries over nearly three decades, which has provided historians with invaluable insight into colonial frontier-women's lives.

Ballard was made famous by the publication of A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785–1812 by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in 1990.

Early life and family

Martha Moore was born in Oxford, Province of Massachusetts, on February 9, 1735, to the family of Elijah Moore and Dorothy Learned Moore. There is little known about her childhood, education, and life before she began keeping her diary at age 50, but it is known that her family had medical links. Her uncle Abijah Moore and brother-in-law Stephen Barton were both physicians. In addition, her family is linked to Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross and granddaughter of Ballard's sister. She married Ephraim Ballard, a land surveyor, in 1754. The couple had nine children between 1756 and 1779, losing three of them to a diphtheria epidemic in Oxford between June 17 and July 5, 1769.

Ballard moved to the Kennebec Valley in Maine in 1777, two years after her husband moved there for surveying.