Tombstone Tuesday ~ Caleb Balch, Windham, New Hampshire

CALEB BALCH
died Jan. 19, 1820
aged 76
MARY, HIS WIFE
died Aug. 28, 1843
aged 82
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Also their children as follows
JOHN died July 19, 1790
aged 1
SAMUEL P. died Feb. 27, 1798
aged 5
CALEB, died Sep. 17, 1799
aged 18
ROXANNA, died Dec. 17, 1816
aged 19
WILLIAM, died June 25, 1830
aged 44.

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