Balls Mills is a village in Hepburn Township. It is named for John Ball who migrated from England to the United States in 1793. He settled in Hillsgrove Township in Sullivan County. There he built a sawmill and was beginning to have success when he drowned while bathing. His son, William, then moved west to Hepburn Township and founded Balls Mills in 1818. He built a fulling mill soon after building his home. The Ball family quickly had success and expanded their milling operations to include a clover mill. The machinery at the clover mill was able to clean clover seed. Clover seed was very expensive at the time, a bushel of the seed sold for as much as $24.00. Clover was very important to farmers for providing ground cover and as a food supply for their grazing dairy cows. The Balls family also built a sawmill, a woolen mill, and a grain cradle manufacturing operation. A cradle is attached to a scythe to gather the harvested grains. The cradles were sold not just in Lycoming County but throughout the United States. The first major shipment to the west arrived in St. Louis, Missouri in 1866.