Santa Clara County
Biographies
EPHRAIM HATCH
EPHRAIM HATCH. The success which Mr. Hatch has achieved
since coming to California has placed his name among those of the most
prominent and representative men of the state, both from a business and
financial standpoint, for he came empty-handed to the west and won his way
against heavy odds to the position he now occupies. Like the great majority who
thronged to the west in the early days of this state, Mr. Hatch sought the
mines at once and for about five years give his time and attention to mining in
the hope of finding the fortune which he had come to seek. Teaming and running
a pack train afterward occupied him for a time, and later farming was the
occupation into which he put all of the energy and perseverance of a nature,
whose inheritance of sturdy characteristics could be traced to an English and
French ancestry. Beginning with a pre-empted tract of one hundred and sixty
acres he found himself at the end of the first two years with nothing but a
mortgage on his farm for more than it would bring,—the result of two
consecutive dry seasons. In 1872 he felt the effects of a changing fortune, and with rare business judgment and keen foresight
at once took advantage of it, adding to his property upon which he raised
enough grain to pay the first price. Ten years later his property was valued at
$100,000. The San Isabel ranch, of San Luis Obispo county,
passed into his possession for this amount of money, and this property,
extending eight miles along the Salinas, was held in his possession for two and
a half years, when he sold it for $210,000.
The Hatch family is of English and French origin, seven
brothers locating in America and scattering to various parts of the United
States. Rufus Hatch, of New York, is the descendant of a branch of the
family. One brother located in Vermont and there the family flourished for
several generations, the grandfather of our personal subject being a native of
the state and a farmer by occupation. His son, Amos S. Hatch, was
born in Vermont, and in Chelsea of that state he conducted a saddlery business in the days when horseback riding was the
favorite mode of travel and pillions were a much-needed article. Later he took
up the whip and harness-maker’s trade and conducted a business of his own until
his death in that place, at the age of eighty-seven years. A stanch Democrat in
his political convictions, he was chosen by his party to the position of county
recorder. In religion he was a Universalist. His wife, formerly
Lucy Piper, was a native of Hancock, Vt. Her death also occurred in
Chelsea.
Of the eight children born to his parents, Ephraim Hatch
was the third from the youngest, and the only one now surviving of the five who
attained maturity. His birth occurred November 17, 1831, in
Chelsea, Vt., where he was reared to young manhood. He received his
education in the public schools of the place, and when seventeen, in the early
part of the year 1849, he went to Lowell, Mass., where he worked as an
accountant. Two years later he started for California. Leaving New York City in
1851 he took passage on a steamer bound for Chagres, and from there walked
across the Isthmus to Panama; thence he went by the steamer Northern to San
Francisco, arriving in September, 1851. Going at once to the mines of Columbia,
Tuolumne county, he followed the exciting life of a
miner for the ensuing five years, during which time he experienced all the ups
and downs of the miner’s life. For the next two years he engaged in teaming and
packing from Columbia into the mountains where a canal to the mines was being
constructed. Removing to Stockton in 1858, he engaged in teaming to the
southern mines for the next eight years. He hauled the lumber from Stockton to
Paradise City, from which the first house in the latter place was constructed.
About 1867 Mr. Hatch took up the agricultural life which has since
engrossed his attention, and in which he has met with such extraordinary
success. His first farm was on the present site of Modesto, Stanislaus county, but after conducting this for one year he returned
to Stockton and again engaged in teaming for one year. The following year he
located three miles south of Modesto, pre-empting a tract of one hundred and
sixty acres, where he built a home and made other necessary improvements and
engaged extensively in grain raising. He struggled against reverses for the
first two years, but after that was successful in the major part of his
efforts. As he was enabled he added to his property, until to-day
he owns nearly six thousand acres in that county and vicinity, in addition to
which he owns six hundred acres in San Luis Obispo county,
and in partnership with John Service owns thirteen thousand acres known as
the Moulton tract, which is rented as a grain farm. Aside from his partnership
interests he owns six hundred and forty acres in Madera county.
The greater part of the immense Stanislaus county property of nearly six
thousand acres, in Thurlock district, is under ditch
and can be properly irrigated, a proposition which has engrossed some of the
most active years of his life. In 1882 Mr. Hatch rented his large farm in
Stanislaus county for the raising of grain, and two
years later he located in San Jose and bought the corner on University avenue
and Elm street where he now makes his home.
In Stockton, January 12, 1862, Mr. Hatch was united in
marriage with Matilda Horn, a native of Springfield, Mo., and a daughter
of Alexander Horn. He was a native of New York City, a cabinet-maker by
trade, and in the early days of the middle west he removed to Missouri, where
he engaged in the furniture business and farming. In 1856 he brought his wife
and four children across the plains by ox teams, and after a five months’ trip,
during which they had an encounter with the Indians in Wyoming and lost four
men, they arrived in California. They settled in Stockton and Mr. Horn
engaged in farming in San Joaquin county, still owning
the property which formed their first permanent home in the state. He resides
in Glendora, Los Angeles county, and is now nearly
ninety years old. He has been quite a prominent man in local affairs, a Whig
and afterward a Republican in politics, and under President Pierce’s
administration he received the appointment to a position in the United States
dead letter office which he filled for four years. His wife, formerly
Mary Simmons, a native of New York City, died on the farm in 1892, at the
age of seventy-two years. They were the parents of five children, of whom Mrs. Hatch
was next to the oldest. She was reared in Stockton and received her education
in Dr. Hunt’s Seminary. To Mr. and Mrs. Hatch were born two children,
of whom Herbert N., a graduate of the University of the Pacific and the
Garden City Business College, is engaged in the stock business on his father’s
ranch; and Cora, a graduate of Mills College, is the wife of
Dr. J. N. Johnston, of San Jose. In his political convictions
Mr. Hatch is a stanch Republican, and though
personally undesirous of official recognition he
gives his influence toward the best advancement of his party’s interests. He is
a thorough Californian in his complete adoption of the best interests of the
country, and considers the state by far the most desirable location in the
United States for a home. He has made several trips back to his home in the
middle west and is thoroughly conversant with the advantages offered by that
portion of the country as well as by that in which he has made his home for so
many years. In 1882 he took his family to Grinnell, Iowa, and they were near
Waterloo when the well-remembered cyclone devastated Grinnell. In one year he
made nine trips back and forth over the continent, his last one, however,
leaving him in the state of his adoption and the one that he has learned to
love for the success he has won as a citizen, and the general esteem and
confidence of all who know him.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 18 February 2015.
Source: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages
359-360. The Chapman Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Marie
Hassard.