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We start our tale with the Ocean View Hotel, an island staple where the cool kids of their eras stayed on visits to the Block. Famously gone, the hotel burned beyond repair in the second half of the sixties. It had stood for close to a hundred years. But the story of the Ocean View Hotel isn’t as interesting as the story of its founder and owner. No—this guy was all over the place in the best way possible.

His name was Nicholas Ball, and he was born on New Year’s Eve, 1828 in none other than New Shoreham, Rhode Island. As a young man, he was fascinated by the sea. Sounds like our kind of guy! He started on ships as a cook and worked himself to Chief Mate over his trips around the world. Eventually landing in Californian Gold Rush land, Nicholas Ball started digging and didn’t stop for two successful years.

With his brilliantly found (and pretty lucky in amount) earnings, he headed back to Block Island in 1851. In the same year, he married and ran back to California to make more! Three years later, he came home for good. And, with his money, he began a soon-to-be-successful mercantile business. But also threw his hat in the political ring!

Elected to Rhode Island’s General Assembly twice in 1845 and 1855, he decided to persist and became a Rhode Island State Senator in twelve out of the next fourteen years. He only stopped in 1873 because he felt like it—no one had asked Mr. Ball to leave!

It was during these years that he engaged himself in another problem. With a trusted colleague, the now State Senator fought for Block Island’s Government breakwater and harbor. For three years, Nicholas Ball wrote, and wrote, and wrote to New England’s merchants—remember he’d been one of them—in order to show Congress proof of Block Island’s wide-ranging commercial ties. Finally, on 22 October 1870, the breakwater construction broke ground.

Now, here’s where the hotel comes in.

With the success of his California mining, State Senator-ing, and all-around ambition, Nicholas Ball laid plans for a hotel to hold all of Block Island’s visitors. Beautifully elegant, popular, and huge for its time, the Ocean View Hotel gained the name “Queen of the Atlantic Coast.” It opened in the year after Mr. Ball relinquished his seat in the Senate, had President Ulysses S. Grant stay for a vacation, and caught fire in 1966. Too bad, too. The photos of it are priceless pieces of the past but they’re nothing against what it might have been like to spend the weekend there.

Unrelated to his hotel venture and political career, he also funded Block Island’s first high school, a few life-saving stations, and the Southeast Lighthouse.

In 1896, he died after a full life. A sailor, a senator, and the quiet saint of Block Island. Think about it—we wouldn’t have the harbor without this guy. Here’s to Nicholas Ball! One of the very many people who have helped shape the Block into our favorite little island.