The Balch House, Beverly, Massachusetts |
I didn’t attend any of the events at the Old Planters Weekend, but I made it a point to get to the Balch family reunion yesterday. There were many reasons why I wanted to go:
1. I’d never been to this reunion before. In fact, I wasn’t even a member. I took care of that as soon as I got
there. If you are interested in joining
the Balch Family Association, contact the Beverly Historical Society.
2. The reunion was held at the Balch house,
which dates back to the early 1600s. It’s
always very interesting to attend a family reunion at the home of an
ancestor. You can read about my first
visit to the Balch house at this link HERE. This house recently underwent some renovations, check out the newly restored windows and front door.
3. I grew up in a house a few blocks from the
Balch house. My great grandfather,
grandfather and father all worked at the United Shoe Machinery Corporation (now the Cummings Center),
which is on the other side of the railroad tracks behind the Balch House. They all walked to work, and home for lunch,
and back to work, and home for dinner for over sixty years. Even my grandmother worked there as a “Rosie
the Riveter” during WWII. And they all
walked right past the Balch House, but no one in my family had ever seen the interior until last year.
4. Two new books were debuted at this family
meeting. Both had never been seen
before. I’ll talk about them below. The authors both spoke, both had ties to the
Balch family and Balch house.
5. The Woodbury family reunion was held at the
same house at the same time, and I’m also a Woodbury descendant. I wasn’t the only one there with descent from
both families. There were quite a few of
us, which makes sense if you’ve ever studied colonial New England history from
Essex County, Massachusetts in the 1600s.
Who else did these families have to choose from when considering
marriage?
The family meetings of the Balch and Woodburys took place in
the back yard of the Balch House. I did
a lot of schmoozing and running back and forth to take a peek at as many charts
and family trees as possible. I think
the folks who brought their big 10 generation fan charts were the most
useful. It was easy to glance at their
charts to see if we had other kinships. Many folks had lots of other Beverly
Old Planter families in their lineages, so I found a lot of cousins besides
just Balch and Woodbury cousins.
Walter Beebe of Essex Restorations spoke for a long time, and answered questions, about the ongoing restoration work at the Balch House. Recent window and door work was visible when the descendants toured the house after lunch. The president of the Beverly Historical Society, Dan Lohnes, gave an explanation of the funds needed for ongoing projects, including starting a possible trust fund for the house. By the end of the reunion a large sum had been pledged by Balch descendants.
Robin Balch Hodgkins’ newly revised Balch Genealogy was debuted at this meeting. The original compiled genealogy was written
by Dr. Galusha B. Balch in 1897. Several
years ago Robin put out a notice for descendants to contact her with their
lineages and proofs. All descendants
were to be included, not just those with the Balch surname. Yes, I’m in the book, with my lineage from my
2nd great grandmother, great grandmother, grandmother, and mother
back to the original planter John Balch.
My daughter is even in there, too!
(You don’t often find women in these compiled genealogies because they
are often dropped because they don’t carry on the Balch name) It was very fun to buy one of the first
copies of this book, and to see my name in it, and to have it autographed by
Robin. The new book has over 12,000
Balch descendants.
The kitchen of the Balch House |
After a bit more schoozing with cousins, and exchanging
contact information with some, we had a bit of time to revisit Beverly’s
Central Cemetery where we were finally successful in finding another
ancestor. I’m still unsuccessful at
finding one last ancestor, and I think the cemetery department has given me the
wrong information on their maps. That
will mean that I will have to contact them again and take a FOURTH trip to
Central Cemetery this year. Sounds like
fun!
For the truly curious:
A Storm of Witchcraft,
by Emerson W. Baker, Oxford University Press, 2014
Balch Genealogy,
compiled by Robin Balch Hodgkins, Beverly Historical Society, 2014 (Contact the Beverly Historical Society to
buy a copy of this book info@beverlyhistory.org
or call 978-922-1186.)
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The URL for this post is
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/09/balch-family-reunion-at-old-planters.html
Copyright © 2014, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
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