Henry M. Balis was born around 1827 in New York to Abiah Palmer Balis and Maria Clough. His father was a farmer who owned $400 of real estate in 1850. Balis probably grew up in Westfield, New York, and the family moved to Rock County, Wisconsin, sometime in the 1840s. He travelled to Placerville, California, around 1849 to mine for gold, and by 1850 he was reportedly mining $5 worth of gold each day.

 

He returned to Rock County around 1852, and he married Dorothy Van Wagner there on December 9, 1852. She died sometime in the 1850s. By 1860, Balis was working as a farmer in Spring Valley, Wisconsin, and he owned $4,500 of real estate and $2,500 of personal property. He married Mary Anzolette Batchelder around 1861, and they had at least three children: Henrietta, born around 1862; Esther, born around 1868; and Margaret, born around 1869.

 

Balis enlisted in the Union army on August 15, 1861, and mustered in as a 2^nd lieutenant in Company G of the 13^th Wisconsin Infantry on September 10. He spent most of the way on garrison duty in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama. He was promoted to 1^st lieutenant on October 12, 1862, and he mustered out on January 24, 1865. He returned to Spring Valley after the war, and he died there on March 18, 1869.

 

Image: Henry M. Balis (Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865, available from Ancestry.com)

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