General Notes

WFT CD9, Tree #3807: (Source: Old Planters of Beverley in Massachusetts and the Thousand Acre Grant):

There were five Old Planters: Roger Conant, John Woodberry, William Trask, John Balch and Peter Palfrey. John Balch left England and was originally associated with Thomas Weston in the colony at Wessagusset. The probability is that he arrived at Cape Ann, MA, with Phinneas Pratt, aboard the ship "Anne" in September 1623. After the Wessagusset settlement failed he associated himself with Roger Conant and the others in a Fishery located on Cape Anne. That operated for four or five years, but also farming. Unknown to them, Governor Endicott had obtained patents to Salem and when he arrived negotiated with the original planters to grant them 1000 acres across the Bass
River on land that ultimately became Beverly.

John Balch built the first wooden 2 story house in 1638 on Bass River in Beverly at the corner of Balch and Cabot Streets. In 1930, the house was still standing although greatly increased in size from the original three or four room, thatched cottage of John Balch's day. The grant of land was dated November 11, 1635. The house is now a museum, and it may be the oldest wooden building in the US.

Source: Michael Edward Dobson (dobfam4@@juno.com):
"John Balch landed at Wesseguset, Sep 1623. He came to New England in the company of Capt. Robert Georges, son of Sir Fernandes Georges of Somersetshire, who with others had obtained a generous grant covering a large part of the New England coast. Capt. Robert
Georges was a gentleman adventurer, (a man of the court) of the Church of England and a soldier, not an earnest Puritan seeking religious freedom in the new world. He hoped to establish a little aristocratic England with English customs and form on the rough coast of the New World. The colonists who were farmers, mechanics and traders as well as "gentlemen" and "divines" arrived in Wessegusset (now Weymouth) in late Sept. But the following spring, Georges, with some of his followers, returned to England, "having found the state of things here," wrote Gov Bradford of Plymouth, "not to answer his qualities & conditions, having scarcely saluted the countrie in his Governmente." Perhaps John Balch returned with him as there is an entry in the register at Cuthbert-at-Welles that he returned for a wife in 1625. (He evidently returned to ENG 12 Sep 1625 to marry Margaret Lovell.) He and his wife Margery Lovell made their way to the settlement on Cape Ann near the site of Gloucester.

Joined there by Roger Conant, a disaffected member of the Plymouth colony of Independents, after his enterprise at Cape Ann also went to pieces, four men were left to carry on: Balch, Conant, Peter Palfrey, and John Woodbury. Led by Conant they went S & W to a place called "Naumkeg" by the Indians (where his son Benjamin was born). Here they cleared the woods to plant an agricultural settlement and so became the founders of Salem, MA. These "old planters" as they were called, showed a religious tolerance unusual for the time. No one of these was said to take part in persecution of Baptists, Quakers and Witches. Balch and his wife, encouraged by White (the first minister at Dorchester), helped Conant found the first Salem church in 1629. He took the oath of freeman in 1631 (only church members were freemen, which meant the church practically governed the town). His third son was born at that time and named Freeborn. He held various offices, juryman, arbitrate, etc. When the MA colonists felt threatened by Thomas Morton & his crew at Merry Mount, he attended in 1628, a meeting of heads of various Plantations to consult for the common safety.
Conant, Palfrey, Balch, Woodbury and Wm. Trank (Wm. Trask?) were given a tract of 1000 acres on the Bass River,, now part of the town of Beverly. In 1636-8, John Balch built his house there, said to be now the oldest frame house in MA with a written record. For many years it was maintained by an association of descendents. It is now owned and maintained by the Beverly Historical Association and open to visitors."

Source: "Dodge Genealogy", found online in Genealogy
Library.com: Balch, John, Salem,MA, came 1623 to Cape Ann and then to Salem.