Jonathan Hatch

Jonathan Hatch was a rebel in every sense of the word. He was the son of Thomas Hatch and Unknown. There is very little known about Thomas Hatch prior to his arrival in New England. While there is a pretty little story connected with the courtship and marriage of Thomas Hatch and his second wife, Grace Unknown, the way that Jonathan Hatch and his sister Lydia were treated by the pair was not pretty.

It seems that Miss Grace was a "very winsome and popular young lady and had several suitors beside Thomas Hatch. Eventually Miss Grace had narrowed her choices to two men; Thomas Hatch and another admiring gentleman. Evidently it was so difficult for the coy Miss Grace to select her husband from the two men it was decided that since they were farmers they would conduct a "reaping match." The whole point of this contest was that whoever could reap a certain equal measured portion of a field of grain, he would win the prize; our lovely Miss Grace. The day of the reaping match, Miss Grace had her portion staked out between that of the two men and the contest began. It was in the days that reaping grain was done by hand sickle, which was no easy task for any man. It appears that at some point the ever popular Miss Grace had come to a decision that no matter which man won, she wanted to marry Thomas. In order to insure that Thomas would win she slyly cut over some of her portion into Thomas's portion thereby assuring him the victory and her hand in marriage.

Unfortunately, Miss Grace did not have the required skills to be a very loving stepmother to the young Jonathan Hatch and his sister, Lydia. It seems that because Miss Grace did not get along with her step-children, they were only intermittent occupants of their father's home. Because of that, the leaders in the community tended to view them with distrust and dislike. Such was the accepted method of life in the Bay Colonies at that time that is a person did not have a regular occupation or a specific home to live in they invited special attention and were closely watched and often ordered out of town. Frequently the leaders of a community would direct that someone like Jonathan or Lydia Hatch would live with a family in the community who did have merit and worth.

Poor Jonathan. It was decided that the discipline of a soldier would benefit young Jonathan and at the age of twelve he was apprenticed to Lieutenant Davenport of Salem, Massachusetts. It seems that "the free spirit of Jonathan chaffed and fretted under the strictures and discipline of the soldier and perhaps a homesick longing to be near friends and after serving Lt. Davenport for about two years, he could endure it no longer and deserted and made his way to Boston with the probable intent of seeking passage by boat to Yarmouth where his father then resided." Unfortunately that was a mistake. Although Boston was larger than Yarmouth or Sandwich, Massachusetts, they still noticed a strange young boy wandering freely through the streets and by September 2, 1640, Jonathan was arrested as a fugitive from service and "was censured to be severely whipped and for the present is committed for a slave to Lieut. Davenport."

Our impetuous, young Mr. Hatch did not wait around for his obligatory whipping and he did not return to his master, Lt. Davenport. With youth on his side and "a good head and two good legs and the spirit and will to use them" he arrived safely at his father's home at Yarmouth.

Our admiration of the young Jonathan Hatch braving the wilderness, Indians, wolves and other hostile creatures whether it be man or beast is beyond description. However, he still could not seem to stay out of trouble. By December 1, 1640, three short months after his last arrest, Captain Nicholas Simpkins had Jonathan arrested and charged him with slander. Thankfully, Jonathan was able to prove that he was not guilty of slander because the devious Captain Simpkins was fined forty shillings and Jonathan Hatch was set free.

While we wish that we could say this was the end of Jonathan's troubles, we can't. His father moved to Barnstable in June of 1641 and Jonathan remained in Yarmouth, earning what he could, when he could, but still without a settled home or family to reside with. Finally, on March 1, 1642, Jonathan was "taken as a vagrant and for his misdemeanors was censured to be whipped and sent from constable to constable to Lt. Davenport at Salem." I can only imagine Jonathan's horror upon discovering that he would wind up with the hated Lt. Davenport and that he would finally receive his long overdue whipping that Lt. Davenport would probably execute with delight. Either by throwing himself on the mercy of the court or by assuring them that he would never stay with Lt. Davenport, Jonathan once again escaped the fate that awaited him in Salem. On April 5, 1642, the sentence was reconsidered because Jonathan was in Plymouth Colony while Lt. Davenport was in Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was determined that Jonathan could not be sent back into the service of a master residing in another colony. It was decided instead that Jonathan would live with Mr. Stephen Hopkins of Plymouth, who was entreated to have special care of Jonathan.

While nothing survives that tells us of Jonathan's treatment by Stephen Hopkins while in his household, it appears as though life was without significant event until Mr. Hopkins died two years after Jonathan moved in with him. While this space is too limited to go into all of the accomplishments of Mr. Stephen Hopkins, it appears from written material and records that he was the man that Jonathan must have wanted to emulate in his adult years. It is very possible that Stephen Hopkins was the unsung hero who made all of the difference in the life of young Jonathan Hatch.

In 1644 Jonathan Hatch was on the list of those able to bear arms at Barnstable. In 1645 he was one of four men forming the quota of Barnstable who with men from other towns went forth August 15 in an expedition against the Narragansett Indians. The soldiers each received one pound of powder, three pounds of bullets and one pound of tobacco. They returned September 2, 1645 and were disbanded the next day.

Jonathan proved that adversity and bad luck could sometimes make a man a better man, a man who had learned to live by his wits and his talent for survival. On April 11, 1646, he married Miss Sarah Rowley at Barnstable. Young Sarah was only thirteen years old when she married Jonathan Hatch. In one account it is stated that she settled in Dartmouth with her father in 1639, in another it says that she and her father moved from Dorchester, Massachusetts to Barnstable, Massachusetts. Sarah Rowley was the daughter of Henry Rowley and Ann Palmer. Sarah lived with her family into the house that had been Barnstable's first parsonage. It was a two-story frame house, built of heavy timbers and covered with one and one-quarter inch planks, having at the time it was built a thatched roof. It stood on ground occupied later by the Barnstable Inn.?? It was called "the ancient house" in the Probate Records of 1748. There was a wharf and a landing on the rear of this lot, and another on the north side with a shipyard where ships were built until about 1800.

After about eight years of apparent tranquil life at West Barnstable, with the exception of being prosecuted October 7, 1651, in company with Samuel Hinckley (the father of Gov. Thomas Hinckley) for hiring land of the Indians, but was cleared and March 2, 1651/2, Jonathan Hatch was prosecuted for furnishing an Indian with a gun and with powder and shot. Those small troubles aside, Jonathan and Sarah were seemingly happy, blessed with each other and three little boys and a girl.

October 7, 1654, he moved to South Sea, five or six miles southward. His grant was recorded February 14, 1655. He had "fifty acres more or less of upland with a little parcel of Marsh adjoining at a place commonly called Sepnisset on ye South Sea" and eight acres of meadow, four of which were at Oyster Island. His possessions at the South Sea included "thirty acres bounded southerly by ye said creek, commonly called Sepawessisset alias Sepauisset, lying 140 rod long by ye sea side and 40 rod into ye woods."

His nearest white neighbor is thought to have been Roger Goodspeed, whose house was several miles distant, but he had a good neighbor in Paupmunnueke, sachem of the Massapees, who had a wigwam about a mile from the log house of Jonathan Hatch. He was friendly and helpful to his Indian neighbors even to at times suffering the consequences. In June, 1658, he was brought into Court on account of an Indian named Repent having threatened to shoot Governor Prence, and was accused of having justified the offender. The Court admonished him and discharged him.

There is so much more history to share about Jonathan Hatch and his family. For now we will leave him here, happy at last at Saconnessit (place of black shells), the Falmouth of today, where he acquired land of the Sachem Notantico, probably in 1659 or 1660.