Hezekiah J. Balch (sometimes middle initial I. or I. J.) was a 19th-century American politician of Mississippi. According to the Works Progress Administration's History of Jefferson County, Mississippi, he was "lawyer from North Carolina, [who] came to Tennessee, then removed to Jefferson County, settling near Greenville, where he figured prominently." [1] In J. F. H. Claiborne's telling, "H. I. Balch was a lawyer from North Carolina, to Tennessee, thence to this Territory. Some of his family figured in the State of Franklin, and afterwards in Nashville." [2]
There was a letter waiting for him at the Greenville, Mississippi Territory post office in October 1805. [3] He was executor for a Mississippi estate in 1806. [4] He married Betsy West in Jefferson County, Mississippi on January 4, 1806. [5] His wife Elizabeth Balch died at Greenville in January 1807. [6] He remarried, to Maria West, in January 1808. [7]
In May 1813 he placed second behind Thomas Hinds in an election for a seat in the Mississippi Territorial Assembly. [8] In December 1813 he was seated as the representative from Jefferson County in the territorial legislature. [9] According to the WPA history, Balch was the representative to the territorial assembly from Jefferson County from 1811 to 1813. [10]
Balch's second wife, Maria West Balch, died in 1816 at age 24. [11]
He was a signer of the 1817 Constitution of Mississippi. [12] He served as a Mississippi state senator representing Jefferson County to the 1st Mississippi Legislature of 1817–1818. [13] Under the state constitution his term of service was to be one year. [14] He died sometime prior to May 1818. [15]
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