I was pleasantly surprised to see this tombstone in the
Windham, New Hampshire Cemetery on the Hill.
The name BALCH is in my family tree, and is from the founding of the
town of Beverly, Massachusetts. I
snapped this photograph and hoped to make a connection later when I researched
Caleb Balch. And I was correct to find
he was from the same BALCH family. What was
more surprising was to find that his father’s first wife, Mary Felton, is my 6x
great aunt! Mary (Felton) Balch, born 1707, is the sister of my 6x great
grandfather, Malachi Felton!
Major Caleb Balch was born 7 June 1747 in Beverly,
Massachusetts, the son of Caleb Balch and Jerusha Porter, and he died on 19
January 1820 in Windham, New Hampshire.
He married Mary Sanders, daughter of William Sanders and Esther Peaslee
on 13 February 1780. She was born on 13
October 1754 in Salem, New Hampshire, and died on 28 August 1843 in
Windham. I do not have a record of his military service, but the flag on the grave was an SAR marker. They had eight children:
1.)
Caleb, born May 1781 in Beverly, died 17
September 1799 in Windham (according to Morrison’s History of Windham “He slid
down the side of a barn head foremost between the boards and the hay and was
smothered” about 18 years old)
2.)
Mary “Polly”, born 16 January 1783 in Beverly,
died 5 April 1869 in Windham; married Phineas Gordon. She was a Windham schoolteacher.
3.)
William, born 31 August 1786 in Windham, died 24
June 1830 in Windham
4.)
John, born 1789 in Windham, died 19 July 1790 in
Windham
5.)
Jerusha, born 26 January 1791 in Windham, died 8
October 1874 in Windha; married John Kelly
6.)
Samuel P., born 1793 in Windham, died 27 Feb
1798
7.)
Roxanna, born 25 April 1797 in Windham, died 17
December 1816
8.)
Porter, born 1799 in Windham
My kinship to the Caleb Balch above:
1 John
Balch (d. 1648 Salem, Mass) m. Margery Unknown
2 Benjamin
Balch (abt 1628 – 1715) m. Sarah Gardner
3 John Balch m. Hannah Veren Mary Balch m. Nathaniel Stone
4. Caleb Balch m.
Jerusha Porter Josiah Stone m. Dorithy
Fuller
5. Caleb Balch m. Mary Saunders Josiah Stone
m. Martha Ashby
6. Josiah Stone m. Susanna Hix
7. Eunice Stone m. Peter
Hoogerzeil
8. Peter
Hoogerzeil m. Mary Etta Healey
9. Florence Etta Hoogerzeil m. Arthur Treadwell Hitchings
10. Gertrude Matilda Hitchings
(my maternal grandmother)
This lineage of mine lived in Beverly, Massachusetts since the first John Balch arrived in the New World in the 1630s. Including my mother, who was born in Ipswich, and grew up in Hamilton, but went to the Beverly Hospital School of Nursing, and married my father (born in Beverly), lived in Beverly after marriage where my sister and I were both born in Beverly! I think it is the only lineage I have that lived in one place that long.
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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
Interesting post. It must have been sad for Mary to out live four of her children.
ReplyDeleteBeneath Thy Feet