Historic Beverly: Balch House

In September 2024, I visited places and attended programs in Essex National Heritage Area as part of its annual event Trails & Sails. On my second day, I visited the John Balch House in Beverly, MA. This 1679 post-medieval style home was the former residence of the colonial Balch family and purchased by the Balch Family Association with the help of William Sumner Appleton, Jr. in 1916. Appleton would later found the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), now called Historic New England (HNE). Meanwhile, the house was given to the Beverly Historical Society, now Historic Beverly, in 1932, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

John Balch arrived in Massachusetts Bay Colony from Somerset around 1623 or 1624, moved to Salem in 1626, and settled in Beverly around 1635. He married twice in his life, first to Margery or Margaret, who immigrated with him, and later to Annis; neither woman had their maiden names recorded. John and Margaret worked for the Dorchester Company, which specialized in fishing, but the business did not last. The family was evidently of high standing, as one of their sons, also named John Balch, married Mary Conant, the daughter of Roger Conant who founded Salem. When the elder John died in 1648, his oldest son Benjamin inherited all his property. The original house burned in a 1679 fire, so the current house was rebuilt in its place.

The architecture of the house does not differ greatly from the other post-medieval buildings that I have visited. (I have a full list here for those interested.) The original portion of the house was a single room with a large fireplace. A second room of equal size was added later, along with a second floor and an addition on the back. The house is currently a mix of unpainted and brown-painted clapboard siding with red-painted trim. Recreation casement windows have familiar diamond shaped glass panes. The summer beams are chamfered and the gunstock posts have additional decorative carvings, showing that this family had extra money to spend on decoration.

Among the more unique aspects of the otherwise standard building was a timeline of the house. The timeline showed John Balch receiving two hundred acres through a so-called “Thousand Acre Grant” in 1635, which allowed him and other members of “The Old Planters” to build their houses. The timeline included fun architectural studies buzzwords like dendrochronology, or dating a piece of wood by counting the tree rings and comparing it to wood of a known age. The family was tangentially involved in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, as Mary Gage or Gadge alleged that Dorcas Hoar had tortured David Balch, eighteen-year-old son of Benjamin Balch, until his death two years earlier in 1690. Perhaps the most successful Balch descendent was Emily Greene Balch, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for leading the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

Balch House is open seasonally on Mondays in June, July, and August along with special days during Trails & Sails in September. Times of day appear variable. Tickets are sometimes $5 for adults, but between the many special discounts and events offered, most visitors will enter for free. Parking is available on site and in a nearby lot. Like most historic houses, Balch House is not accessible for those with limited mobility or using a wheelchair. Similar to nearby Cabot House, which is also part of Historic Beverly, this property is a great opportunity for young local families visiting their first house museums and historians interested in learning more about Essex County.

Abby Epplett’s Rating System

Experience: 7/10

Accessibility: 7/10