John Balch House

Massachusetts · United States · House

Eighteen-year-old David Balch lay ill in the chamber and said figures at the foot of his bed were tormenting him — two years before the Salem trials.

The John Balch House on Cabot Street is one of the oldest timber-framed houses in the United States, with fabric from the first half of the seventeenth century. Its legend is older than the witch trials. In 1690 David Balch, grandson of the patriarch John Balch, lay sick and bedridden here. He died that year, aged eighteen. Two years later, as the accusations swept through Essex County, a neighbour named Mary Gage testified in court about what she had heard the young man say during his illness: that he was tormented by figures standing at the foot of his bed who would not leave him be. Her deposition survives in the trial papers. The house still stands and opens in summer, and that chamber is what visitors ask for.

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Where is John Balch House located?

John Balch House is in Massachusetts, United States.