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- [S2229] Mary Caroline Crawford, Famous Families of Massachusetts, Volume 1 - eBooks, (Name: Little, Brown; Location: Massachusetts; Date: 1930;), Google eBooks: Famous Families of Massachusetts, Volume 1 -- The "Old Planters".
At the dinner accompanying the Endicott festival held in September, 1878, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the landing of John Endecott, Honorable Willian C. Endicott of Salem alluded to “four good men”, Balch, Conant, Palfrey and Woodbury, who were already settlers in Salem at the landing of Governor Endecott in 1628, and received him. “These four came to be known as the “Old Planters.”
In September 1626, a number of families that had been engaged in fishing on Cape Ann removed to the densely wooded Naumkeag peninsula where the railroad now crosses from Salem to Beverly and changed their vocation to agriculture. They formed a population of about twenty, including several women and children. In the following year plans were broached for removal to Virginia, but on behalf of the merchants of Dorchester, England, who had organized the company, a letter was written by Reverend John White, known as the Patriarch of Dorchester, to Roger Conant of the colony, promising a patent if he, with John Woodbury, John Balch and Peter Palfrey, known to be honest and prudent men, would stay at Naumkeag.
John Balch, the first to be named at the Endicott dinner as one of the “Old Planters”, came to Massachusetts in 1623 with Robert Gorges, the son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, also a Somersetshire man, to help establish a permanent colony for the material development of the Gorges’ grant. The expedition set sail from Plymouth in July and arrived at what is now Weymouth the following September. The circumstances surrounding the failure of this expedition and the abandonment of the settlement by young Gorges have been well described by Charles Francis Adams in “The Episodes of Massachusetts History.” The little group fell apart rapidly, some departing for Virginia, others for the Maine coast, while many returned to England.
John Balch appears also to have returned, but only that he might bring back a wife. In the register at St. Cuthbert at Wells, Somersetshire, is the entry “1625 September wed[d]ings; John Balch and Margaret Lovell the 12th.” Returning, they found lodgment at Cape Ann and in 1626 reached Naumkeag, where the bridegroom became one of the four leaders of the colony. Balch had a fair education for the times and held various offices of trust, among them being that of principal land surveyor for the settlement. He built the old Balch house, which is still standing. They had three sons, of whom only the eldest left descendants.
Benjamin Balch, the eldest, was born in the winter of 1628-1629, and has been accorded by late historians the distinction of being the first white male child born in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. He married Sarah, daughter of Thomas Gardner, overseers of the Cape Ann plantation. They had seven sons and four daughters, of whom ten grew up. By a third wife, Grace Mallet, he had two more daughters. All were born and reared in the house erected by his father. He probably completed his eighty-sixth year, and his hardihood is characteristic of the family. Four of his sons left descendants.
Samuel Balch, the eldest son of Benjamin, was in the expedition against Quebec in 1690 and was town clerk in Beverly. He married Martha Newmarch and they had ten children. The first, Martha, married Thomas Hovey and there are many present-day descendants of note. Benjamin Balch, the second son of Benjamin, married Elizabeth Woodbury, granddaughter of the old planter. He was a mariner and they had six children. John Balch, the third son of Benjamin, married Hannah Verin. They had fourteen children and lived to celebrate their sixty-fourth wedding day. He is now represented by more descendants than the other three brothers. Freeborn Balch was the youngest son of Benjamin. Of his three children, Benjamin, the youngest, who married Mary Prentice, is particularly to be remembered because he was the father of Reverend Thomas Balch.
(pp 91-92) The article goes on to describe the descendants of Reverend Thomas Balch and Mary Prentice Balch. Among their children and grandchildren were Ambassador Charles Gates Dawes, Vice President of the US and Payne Wingate, successively a member of Congress, US Senator, and Judge of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire.
Then it continues: A Balch genealogy published about 1895 lists two thousand five hundred descendants of John Balch, the original settler. Members of the Balch family born to the name in and about Boston have very largely been lawyers. Francis N. Balch, of the ninth generation of Balches in this country, is the representative of this profession in the present generation. Emily Greene Balch, for many years Professor of Political Economy and Political and Social Science at Wellesley College, and later secretary of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, with an office in Geneva, is a sister of Francis N. Balch. Doctor Franklin Greene Balch, well-known Boston surgeon, is another distinguished descendant of the John Balch who came to America in 1623.
Lines of descent in this very early New England family have been traced to State governors, Honorable Charles Warren Lippitt of Thode Island, Honorable Henry Tifft Gage of California and Honorable Aza Whitcomb of Indiana; also to General Adolphus W. Greely, of Arctic fame, and to Allen c. Balch of Los Angeles, civil engineer who has developed many public utility plants on the Pacific coast. Samuel W. Balch of New York, whose profession is that of a mechanical engineer, is recognized as the authority on the history of this important and far-reaching family.
(p. 93) Salem was the name given to area settled by the “Old Planters”, replacing a Native American name.
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History-The Old Planters (Balch)
The "OLD PLANTERS" The Balch, Conant, Palfrey and Woodbury Families from "Famous Families of Massachusetts" Volume I, by Mary Caroline Crawford |
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