Thomas Balch
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C<EUR ET COURAGE FONT L' OUVRAGE. BALCH GENEALOGICA BY T·HOMAS WILLING BALCH MEMBER OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY THE COUNCIL OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA PHILADELPHIA ALLEN, LANE AND SCOTT 1211-13 CLOVER STREET 1907 Copyright. 1907. by THOMAS WILLING BALCH. PRESS OF ALLEN, LANE AND SCOTT, PHILADELPHIA, p A. /I ARMS OF BALCHE, VlSITATION OF SOMERSETSHIRE, 1623. HARLEY MANUSCRIPT 1559, FOLIO 347b (248b). BRITISH MUSEUM, BALCH GENEALOGICA INTRODUCTION. In 1845, my father, Mr. Thomas Balch, soon after his admission to the New York Bar, began to collect the information contained in this book. He-never ceased in this aim until his death in 1877. After graduating at Harvard, I took up the work as he had left it and slowly added to the material in hand. In searching for facts, I often was misled into exploring a false trail. Gradually, the evi dence sifted down to rock-bottom. I have taken the utmost care to verify all statements, and yet there are certainly errors in this work, for in a genealogy covering a period of more than four centuries, it is impossible to avoid them. In 1886 and 1897 I visited in Somersetshire, Bridgwater, and in 1897 Ilminster· and Horton, collecting on both trips valuable information. The documents in the archives in England I have had copied by competent experts, but I could not compare them with the originals. They are here reprinted in extenso. It is my hope sometime in the future to publish an addenda to this book, incorporating new in formation and corrections. And I begin at once by adding that one of the Robert Balches of Bridg- ... Vlll BALCH GENEALOGICA. water bought about 1682 the house of Admiral Blake, the hero of that town, and that the Balch family lived in it about sixty years. In 17 7 7 another Robert Balch was Mayor of Bridgwater. These items are gleaned from the Rev. Dr. Powell's recent book, The Ancient Borough of Bridgwater. I have forgotten to state that there is a handsome steel engraving of the Rev. Dr. Stephen Bloomer Balch by John Sartain, as well as a water color painting of him, probably also by Sartain, and a miniature on ivory belonging to the Presby terian Historical Society, Philadelphia; and that my father was elected in 1875 an honorary mem ber of Whig Hall at Princeton. As members of the family fought on different sides during our Civil War over the slavery question-two held commissions from the Union and two from the Confederacy-so during the Civil War in England between the King and the Parliament, some sup ported the former and some, according to family traditions, the latter in the struggle over the form of government. In this book- there is much relating to Presbyterianism, 1:)ecause many of the person ages spoken of in the book were Calvinists. I am proud of them, especially of the old gentleman, my bisaieul, who planted and then for fifty-three years preached the Gospel in the District of Columbia; but I do not wish it thought that I think the sum of right eousness is to be found in any one church. Others . INTRODUCTION. 1X of my ancestors were Episcopalians, Quakers, Hu guenots, Catholics, Lutherans, and at least one, Major-General Thomas Harrison, an Independent. All these churches, and many others besides, it seems to me~ have a raison d' etre in the world. The contents of this book can have an interest for only a small number of people, and that is my excuse for including in it all sorts and manner of information, and reprinting some articles that other wise would be practically lost to that circle of readers: and I recommend this work to some future worker on the same subject, who, profiting by the discovery of new documents, especially in England, may explain points that at present are obscure. It would be of much interest to find exactly where the two emigrants were born. In all probability they were remote kinsmen. It has not been my aim to write a complete genealogy, but to publish all the information at present available of the family in England, and of the descendants of John Balch '' of Maryland.'' I have referred also in a few pages to John Balch ''of Massachusetts'' and some of his descendants. As valuable and interesting family papers have twice suffered from destruction by fire in the past-first in 1831, when the house of my bisaieul in Georgetown was burnt, and second in 1856, when some family letters that my father had left with the binder for mounting and binding were likewise destroyed-I have sought to place all X BALCH GENEALOGICA. infonnation in my hands! that has come either through my father, or that I have myself collected, beyond any such recurrence in the future. Finally, believing it is good to have some reverence for the experiences of the past as we prepare for the future, I have acted on the thought expressed by Charles Lamb in one of his sonnets: " 'T is man's worst deed To let the 'things that have been' run to waste, And in the unmeaning present sink the past: In whose dim glass even now I faintly read Old buried forms, and faces long ago.'' In my work in our own country, I have re ceived assistance from many kind friends, especially Charles Penrose Keith, Esq., the Rev. Louis F. Benson, D. D., John W. Jordan, Esq., and Miss May Atherton Leach, all of Philadelphia. T. W. B. PHILADELPHIA, January 17th, 1907. The Balch Family of County Somerset, England. BALCH, the name of a family of County Somerset,1 England, is either of Norman-French or English and not of British origin. At various times and with slightly different variations, this name is found in such far-distant countries as Baluchistan, Tibet, Afghanistan, Roumania, Russia, Servia, Germany, Flanders and Somersetshire. In Tibet there is the Balch Pass of the Balch Range of mountains.2 In northern Afghanistan the town now standing where the ancient city of Bactra stood, is called by the Germans on their maps Balch, and by the English on their atlases Balkh.3 In 1860 the Roumanian Minister of Foreign Affairs was Gregoire Balche . 1 Somerset, the land of the Sumorsaetan, is one of the West-Saxon shires which grew by gradual conquest from the Welsh, as opposed to the Mercian shires which were mapped out around a town and called by its name. There has never been any central town or ac knowledged capital in Somerset, though Somerton bears a name cognate with the land. Assizes, elections and like functions were · held at different places at various times. The land had no distinct name before the English conquest. See the Encyclopedia Britannica: New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1887, Volume XXII., page 259. 2 Geographical 'fo·urnal: London, 1900, Volume XV., page 168. Glacieres or Freezing Caverns, by Edwin Swift Balch, Philadelphia, 1900, page 263. 3 Adolph Stieler's Hand Atlas: Gotha, Justus Perthes: "Iran und Turan;" Map No. 59, Ausgabe 1895. The Encyclopedia Britannica: London and Edinburgh, 1903. 2 BALCH GENEALOGICA. In 1870 Alexandre de Balch published at Odessa and Leipzig an essay entitled, M. Renan et Arthur Schopenhauer; Essai de critique. Among the offi cers on the Russian cruiser V ariag, when she was sunk by a Japanese squadron of cruisers and de stroyers off Chemulpo harbor in February, 1904, was Lieutenant Balck.4 In Servia one of the friends of King Milan, it is said, was a Baron Balch, who, at his death, it is related, left to his sovereign a fortune of two millions of florins.5 In the Nouveau Larousse Illustre, Dictionnaire Universel Encyclopedique, at page 688, there is this statement: "Balchides (en serbe Baochitchi), dynastie serbe qui regna en Albanie et au Montenegro au XIVe et au xve siecle. Elle eut pour fondateur, d'apres les ecrivains slaves, un Serbe nomme Balcha, mort en 1368, tandis que Du Cange pretend que les Balchides etaient appa rentes a la maison des Baux (V. ce nom)-Un, une Balchide. ''6 The name of Balck or Balcke is found in the German Provinces of Silesia, Pomerania and West phalia :7 Balck is 1:mown also in Mecklenburg- 4 The Public Ledger, Philadelphia, April 2nd, 1904. 5 The Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, 1904. 6 In Old Provence, by Theodore Andrea Cook, the author in speak ing of the castle and Counts of Les Bawc, says in a footnote: "The Latin name in the deed is 'Balcius.'~! New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905, Volume IL, page 127. 7 Armorial General Precede d' un Dictionnaire des T ermes du Blason par J. B. Rietslap, Gouda, 1884, 2nd edition. Supply and Expenditure of Ammunition by Captain Balck, at- THE NAME OF BALCH. 3 Schwerin.8 A family of the name of van der Balcht is recorded in Brussels and Flanders.9 The name of Balck is well known in Flanders and in Flemish means " une poutre," a " beam." Monsieur Al bert Soenens, juge au Tribunal de Premiere In stance de Bruxelles, writes from Brussels, May 10th, 1904: "Le nom de Balk ou Balck (avec k) est assez repandu dans tout le pays flamand: en langue flamande cela veut dire 'poutre.' '' Similarly the French word balcon designates a platform ad vancing out from a wall, and probably has the same origin as Ba-lck.10 Among the holders of land mentioned in Domsday Book, it is said occurs the name of Balchi.11 In Norway the names Balchen and Balchens exist.