eter's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was married in 1787 to her
cousin, James Dunlop. Mr. Peter's mother had been Jean Dunlop of
Garnkirke. To this couple, the father also gave a house situated not far
from his own, a block away, up High Street (Wisconsin Avenue). There
they reared a large family.

No more interesting figure looms out of the mists of early George Town
than the Reverend Stephen Bloomer Balch, the founder and first pastor of
the Presbyterian Church. But, far more than that, he seems to have been
pastor, "Parson," as he was affectionately called, for the entire
community. It was in his church edifice that each denomination met until
they procured their own.

Born on his parents' place in the Susquehanna region, graduated from
Princeton in the same class with Aaron Burr, Dr. Balch went to Lower
Marlboro, Calvert County, Maryland, to take charge of a classical
academy in October, 1775. For two years he taught, drilled the students
in military training, and studied theology on the side. His books were
borrowed from the Reverend Thomas Clagett, who afterwards became the
first Episcopal Bishop of Maryland, and now lies buried in the
Washington Cathedral, not very far from his pupil in Oak Hill Cemetery.

Not very long after Dr. Balch was licensed as a preacher, he came to
George Town, about 1778, the only place of worship at that time being
the Lutherans' small building, where their new church now stands on the
corner of the present Q Street and Wisconsin Avenue. The lot was given
in 1769 by Colonel Charles Beatty. Dr. Balch preached there on Thursday
night and again on Sunday. He did not remain at that time, but, a year
or so later, asked to come back, and at first used a little frame house
on the north side of Bridge (M) Street, which was occupied on week days
by a school. Just about this time he was made principal of the Columbian
Academy, and the next year he married Elizabeth Beall, the daughter of
George Beall. I wonder if he had, by any chance, met her on his first
visit, and the memory of her bright eyes had followed him on his
journeys down into the Carolines and lured him back.

At the wedding of Dr. and Mrs. Balch in 1782, tea was served in cups not
much larger than thimbles. The ladies of George Town would not drink tea
at all during the Revolution, and it was still not plentiful.

He was of a susceptible nature, for, after his wife's death in 1827, he
was married the next year, when he was eighty