John Balch House
| John Balch House | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 John Balch House |
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| location | Beverly , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 33 '43.9 " N , 70 ° 53' 4.9" W | ||
| Built | around 1679 | ||
| Architectural style | First Period | ||
| NRHP number | 73000275 | ||
| The NRHP added | 23rd February 1973 | ||
The John Balch House , alternatively also referred to as the Balch House for short , is a First Period building constructed around 1679 in Beverly , Massachusetts . It is one of the oldest existing wooden skeleton - half-timbered houses in North America. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since February 1973 . The Beverly Historical Society now operates a museum in the John Balch House.
history
John Balch and his wife moved to the United States from Somerset , England in 1623 . They were the first members of the Balch family in the "New World". The settlers came to America with the Dorchester Company to settle and fish in New England . The enterprise failed and most of the settlers returned to England by 1626. Balch and a few others, including Roger Conant , who is considered to be the founder of the city of Salem , stayed in America and settled in Massachusetts. The remaining settlers went down in New England history as the Old Planters .
In 1935, John Balch acquired the land on which the house is now under the Thousand Acre Grant . According to historical records, he built today's John Balch House in 1636, which was rebuilt and expanded several times in the following decades. Most historians and the Beverly Historical Society were of this opinion until the 2000s, and the house was therefore considered to be the oldest still existing half-timbered house in the United States. In a dendrochronological investigation commissioned in 2006 in Oxford , however, it was shown that the wood used was not felled until 1679, and the official year of construction of the house was then adjusted accordingly. Furthermore, historians are of the opinion that John Balch had built a house at the current location, but according to calculations, the current building was built on the site of the first house by his son or grandson. The dendrochronological examination also showed that the southern part of the house was added in 1721. The oldest piece of wood found dates from 1660.
The building remained the residence of the Balch family until 1916. The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiques then founded the "Balch House Trust" to buy the house and keep it from deteriorating. Finally, in 1932, the John Balch House came into the possession of the Beverly Historical Society, which has been maintaining it ever since.
See also
literature
- Anne Wardwell, Elizabeth R. Amadon: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. ( PDF ) National Park Service , April 11, 1972, accessed on March 2, 2016 (English, accessible via the NR button ).
- Galusha Burchard Balch: Genealogy of the Balch families in America . Eben Putnam, Salem, Massachusetts 1897 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Balch House (John Balch House) , Essex National Heritage Area.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Balch House. Beverly Historical Society, accessed March 2, 2016 .
- ^ Paul Leighton: Tests cast doubt on Balch House's 'oldest' claim. The Salem News, April 25, 2007, accessed March 2, 2016 .