Person:Thomas Hatch (57)

Thomas with his wife Grace, small son Jonathan and probably their smaller daughter Lydia came to Boston perhaps in the Winthrop Fleet about 1630 or so. He settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts Bay Colony, received grants of land, joined the Church and satisfied other requirements of a desirable citizen. He was make a freeman on 14 May 1634. This qualified him as a voter.

Thomas and others became interested in land on Cape Cod and requested permission from Plymouth Colony Court to settle there. On 19 Jan 1639 the group left Dorchester and moved to their new town later known as Yarmouth.

Thomas did not stay there long. A serious dispute arose, the cause of which is unknown and Thomas moved again and on 1 Jun 1641 was established in Barnstable where he spent the remainder of his life. He may have been dissatisfied with the land allotted to him or he may have felt that he would be happier in the church of the Rev. John Lathrop in Barnstable.

Jan 1639 he moved to a new town of Yarmouth, Cape Cod 1 Jun 1641 he was established in Barnstable where he remained. In addition to being a farmer he was either a tailor or a cabinet maker.

In the Dorchester Town Records, under the date of April 17th, 1635 "It is ordered that John Phillips and Thomas Hatch shall have each of them 2 acres of land that lyes betwixt the ends of the great lotts and 3 Acres that is graunted to Alexander Miller, if so much be there, P'vided theyt leave a sufficient highway at there great lotts each." John Phillips was a man of some prominence and was made freeman in 1630. He was styled "Biscuit Maker" from London, England and was a first settler of Dorchester. It seems more that probable that Thomas Hatch was also a 1630 first settler. Possibly these men were friends in old England and fellow passengers before becoming adjoining property owners here.

Tradition pictures Thomas Hatch as "rather feeble and effeminate". Perhaps a fondness for music, a violin being noted in the inventory of his estate earned him the reputation for "effeminacy"

Mr. Otis in Barnstable Families says of him: Thomas Hatch was a church member and a freeman, a man whose life was a living testimony to his fiedelity to the principles which he professed. He was not a man of note, yet he was an honest man and a good neighbor. He died in 1661 leaving a widow Grace and son Jonathan and daughter, Lydia, wife of Henry Taylor.

The Plymouth Colony Court granted in 1639 to Joseph Hull and Thomas Dimoc permission to erect a town at the place called Mattacheese by the Indians. Permanent settlements were effected at both Yarmouth and Barnstqable in the summer 1639.

At the Court of Assistants held Jan 1637, Thomas Hatch was among those proposed to take up their freedom at Yarmouth.

By 1640 Thomas was inhabitant of Barnstable and on June 1, 1641 he proposed to take the oath of freeman there. In 1643 he was able to bear arms and is called a member of the Barnstable church.

The house lot of Thomas Hatch in Barnstable as traced by Mr. Otis was "near the Crocker farm at West Barnstable" which corresponds to land later owned by his son Jonathan and by him sold to Capt Thomas Dimmock.

Admitting the unknown quantity and the handicap of ill health, Thomas Hatch, retiring and occupying no prominent public office as far as known, was the worthy founder in New England of a long and honorable line of descendants.

Some histories link Thomas to Arthur Hatch and Mallet of Aller, Devon. Their son Thomas was baptized in October 1599 as the oldest son. Since Arthur died in 1525, Thomas would have become lord of the substantial estate. In 1633, he was named warden, apparently a lifetime appointment. For this to be Thomas of Barnstable, he would have had to leave behind life as a wealthy lord in Devon for life in the colonies, where he wasn’t particularly wealthy and had no servants.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9} Thomas Hatch, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995)
   II:875-876.

   ORIGIN: Unknown.
   CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admission to Dorchester church prior to 14 May 1634 implied by freemanship.
   FREEMAN: 14 May 1634 [MBCR 1:369].

2. ↑ Pack, Charles Lathrop. Thomas Hatch of Barnstable Some of his Descendants: the descent of Alice Gertrude Hatch and her husband, Charles Lathrop Pack, from Thomas Hatch and allied families. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Newark, NJ : The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of New Jersey, 1930, 1979)
   46.
3. ↑ Exact date not known as he died intestate. His widow Grace presented the inventory of his estate, May 27, 1661 amounting only to 14 pounds 18 s. The items included "working tools, timber and an instrument called a violin according to Pope, Pioneers of MA, page 219.
4. ↑ According to Charles Pack in his book "Thomas Hatch of Barnstable" Thomas was probably born about 1603.
5. ↑ Hatch family tradition gives us the following story about the courtship of Thomas and Grace. Is it true? Probably not, although it may have some basis in fact. It is a true part of our family heritage though and worth passing on.
   
   The Harvest of Thomas Hatch
   
   Thomas Hatch had been left a widower by the death of his first wife. Needing a mother for his two young children Lydia and Jonathan, he began to court the daughter of his neighbor, a farmer named Lewis. Grace Lewis was apparently a very attractive and popular young woman for she had several suitors in addition to Thomas. At last, the field was narrowed to Thomas and just one other but, the lovely Grace could not seem to choose between the two. Finally it was decided that the two rivals would take part in a contest to determine who would win the hand of Grace. Since it was harvest time, it would be a reaping contest. The one who reaped his portion of Farmer Lewis's field in the shortest time would be the winner.
   
   On the day of the event, Grace announced that she too would take a part in the contest. She would start in the middle of the field and cut her swaths toward the edges, one side and then the other. The two suitors would start at opposite edges and cut toward the middle. The first to join his swath with Grace's would also join his life with hers.
   
   In the early morning, the contest began. The two rivals paced off the distance to the center of the field and agreed that each patch was even. Grace cut her first swath straight up the middle of the field with an expertise gained through years of harvests. Her two suitors worked furiously to cut their way to the center and to the lovely Grace. The two young men were evenly matched. First one and then the other would take the lead. By ten o'clock, every neighbor for miles around had arrived to cheer on their favorite in the struggle for the hand of Miss Grace.
   
   The noon time hour arrived and the onlookers brought out their picnic lunches but the rivals would not stop to eat. Both kept up an almost superhuman pace so great was each ones desire to win. Grace too kept up her work without a rest first cutting a swath toward Thomas and then one toward the other until finally, just before two in the afternoon, Thomas swung his sickle through the last thin row of grain and joined his harvested ground with Grace's. The young couple clasped hands and raised them high between them for all the town to see.
   
   The happy pair, the relieved father and the jubilant neighbors hurried off to the Lewis home to celebrate the betrothal. Left behind, Thomas's rival gazed forlornly over the harvested ground. Something did not seem quite right to him. As he paced to an fro over the stubbled ground, he saw that the portion he had cut was definitely larger that that cut by Thomas. A closer study showed him that each row of wheat that Grace had cut toward his side of the field was just slightly narrower than the rows cut toward Thomas' side. It seemed that Grace had made up her mind after all! The rival suitor chuckled to himself then set off after the noisy crowd. There would be a party this evening and the young ladies of the town would all be there. It was time for him to set his sights on another prospect. This time he thought, he would not choose a farmer's daughter to court.