Ball’s love for his children “made it impossible for him to accept that some of his actions were harmful to them,’’ his former wife, Karen, said Thursday in an e-mail. “He was unable to comply with the court’s requirement to meet with the children’s counselor because to do so would mean acknowledging that he had done something to warrant the requirement.’’

The courts and his former wife tell a different story. They paint a picture of a prideful and headstrong man who once lost his temper, slapped his 4-year-old daughter hard enough to draw blood, and then chose to remain estranged from his children rather than acknowledge he made a mistake and participate in court-ordered counseling.

“Face it boys, we are no longer fathers,’’ Ball wrote. “We are piggy banks.’’

Ball, 58, intended his fiery death on June 15 - planned and researched at least 10 days in advance - to be the ul timate profane gesture, according to his writings, interviews, and court and police documents. He was taking aim squarely at the courts he blamed for keeping him apart from his kids and for what he saw as the system’s corrupt and ruthless emasculation of divorced dads.

His death and final writings have resonated within the father’s rights movement, of which he was an active member, and revealed a stubborn man consumed by his court battles and, over time, sinking further into darkness.

Such a desperate act would be shocking anywhere, but in the middle of a quaint New England college town, at the end of what Ball had once called “the prettiest Main Street in America,’’ it seems unthinkable.

“A man walks up to the main door of the Keene N.H. County Courthouse, douses himself with gasoline and lights a match,’’ Ball’s letter begins. “And everyone wants to know why.’’

The Keene Sentinel received a biting screed against the legal system, in which Ball recounted the ongoing 10-year court battle over his divorce, child support payments, and visitation rights with his children.

A friend in New Hampshire got a card with the tender inscription, “I miss you already.’’

Engulfed in flame, he screamed as he stumbled from the courthouse steps, fell to his hands and knees, and eventually fell silent.

Four hours later, the divorced father of three died outside a courthouse in downtown Keene after igniting himself in a gory self-immolation.

“Time to climb down into the Higgins boat and take a bouncing ride to the beach,’’ wrote Thomas Ball, referring to the World War II amphibious landing craft.

KEENE, N.H. - On a mid-June afternoon, an unemployed history buff from Holden, Mass. announced cryptically on his Facebook page that “D-Day’’ had arrived.

For years, Ball, acting as his own lawyer, filed one unsuccessful court motion after another seeking access to his children and to undo the requirement that he participate in counseling, which he rejected on principle.

He channeled his frustration at the legal system into action with father’s rights groups seeking to change the law to give fathers more clout in custody and divorce proceedings. Ball would picket courthouses while carrying a sign that read “Children need their fathers’’; he ran seminars for divorced dads on court procedures.

Ball spoke often about missing his children but did not seem depressed and never revealed any violent streak, said Ethan Allen of Clinton, 61, a close friend who met Ball more than 10 years ago through the Army Reserve.

“This is something that happened out of the clear blue sky,’’ Allen said.

Several divorced dads who knew Ball said that while they cannot condone what he did, they understand where his frustration came from.

“Tom’s story, other than its end, is pretty common,’’ said Ned Holstein, chairman of Fathers and Families, a court reform group Ball belonged to.

Ball’s legal story starts in 2001, with three slaps across his daughter’s face when she refused to go to bed.

At the time, the Balls were living in Jaffrey with their daughters, 7 and 4, and son, 2. Tom Ball was working as a service adviser at a nearby Ford dealership. After 11 years of marriage, Tom and Karen had been drifting apart, Tom Ball said in a 40-page memoir he wrote at least two years ago and posted on the Web.

“The gap between us kept stretching until finally you would ask yourself, ‘What did I ever see in her?’ ’’ Ball wrote.

The slapping incident effectively ended the marriage. Karen called the police; Tom was charged with assault. She filed for divorce within weeks.

Tom Ball’s defense was that a parent has the right to discipline a misbehaving child with corporal punishment.

A Superior Court judge later dismissed the case, saying the slaps were inappropriate but not criminal.

Ball, who had moved to Massachusetts to live with his brothers, wrote that he expected to be reunited with his daughters after prevailing in court, but Karen Ball won sole legal custody of the children in the divorce.

“Unfortunately due to the conflict in this divorce, conflict between Mr. Ball and his daughters’ counselors, pride, stubbornness, or other reasons this court cannot fathom, Mr. Ball never participated in the process that would have caused him to reestablish contact with his daughters and begin visitation,’’ the divorce judge wrote. Ball did have visitation with his son, according to court records.