Kedar Ballard was born in Gates County, North Carolina in about 1747. Originally a captain in the Edenton District Minutemen in 1776, in 1777 he became a captain in the 3rd North Carolina Regiment of the Continental Line. He was captured by the British during the fall of Charleston in 1780 and exchanged two years later. After the war he represented Gates County in the North Carolina General Assembly, first in the house from 1807 to 1810, and then in the senate from 1812 to 1814 and in 1816. He died in Gates County on January 16, 1834.