The library was an ironic venue for me. Thomas Balch's uncle, Rev. Thomas Bloomer Balch of Georgetown in Washington DC, knew Yarrow Mamout. Indeed, he delivered two noted lectures in Georgetown in 1859 in which he mentioned "Old Yarrah," who had died thirty-six years earlier. Although Thomas Balch of Leesburg, the man at the right, was but two-years-old when Yarrow died and would not have known him, he may well have heard his uncle talk about the African. His uncle's 1859 lectures were such a major event that he might have gone to Georgetown to hear them. For me, this bust put a face to a family, the Balches, that were until my visit only names on a page.
The Leesburg library is unusual in several ways. It is no longer private. The town of Leesburg took over ownership in 1994. And it is now primarily a research library. Only a few books in its collection may be checked out. The Loudon County public library is the community's lending library. And the Balch library, rather than a historical society, serves as repository for the town's historical material.
In my tour of the library, I was shown a small painting of General Lafayette of American Revolution fame. Lafayette had returned to the United States for a friendship tour in 1824. He supposedly stopped in Leesburg where he was the guest of Thomas Balch's father. The painting was done at that time. I can't attest to the authenticity of the painting, although the library can, but I have seen other portraits of Lafayette that were done at about the same time, and the man in the library's painting is the same as the man in those portraits. That reminded me of what a small, intimate place America once was. Charles Willson Peale, who painted Yarrow, had painted Lafayette during the winter the Continental Army spent at Valley Forge. More on the Thomas Balch library.
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