Young Orphan Finds Future In Hector
by Criss Onan (great-grandson), SUCA Director
Seeking his fame and fortune,16 year old Ernest Hatch (along with his 13 year old brother) arrived in Hector in 1885 as orphans. It’s not known why they chose Hector but the Lehigh Valley Railroad was heavily promoting farming opportunities at the time and the area as the “Switzerland of America”.
Ernest’s father Warren led a troubled life. During his first marriage, he was a boatman at the Port of Oswego. His wife and their two sons all died at relatively young ages. His second wife also died at a young age leaving sons Ernest and brother William. In the 1880 Census, Warren’s occupation was noted as roofer in Syracuse. It listed both sons as living with him although it also indicated them living in an orphanage.
Five years after arriving in Hector, Ernest Hatch married Julia Etta Townsend in Montour Falls.
Julia and her 10 siblings grew up on a farmstead near Logan. It had been part of a larger farm bought by her grandfather after he returned from England. He’d been imprisoned there after being captured by the British at the Siege of Fort Erie in the War of 1812. (A distant Townsend ancestor had earlier acted as a spy for General Washington in the Revolutionary War.) Townsends had arrived in Seneca County in 1800 and helped found the hamlet of Townsendville, east of Lodi.
An 1893/94 county business directory listed the Hatches renting a farm on the Lake Rt. just south of Hector. It was owned by Burdett blacksmith Eugene Erway who was the great-grandson of Hector’s first settler William Wickham.
In a 1901 issue, the Watkins Express reported that Ernest Hatch had bought the farm of William Ely and noted that it “will make him a pleasant home”. (Ely’s family members were also early Hector settlers.) The 30 acre farm included grapes and plum, apricot, peach, apple and pear trees.
Ernest Hatch named the farm “Sagamore”. It was a popular name at the time and was used by Governor-then-President Theodore Roosevelt for his Sagamore Hill residence. In 1915 the Hector Fruit Growers Association patented a brand of grapes using the name. (Although the farmhouse is no longer there, the farm is still named Sagamore located at 5827 Rt. 414 at the intersection of Hatch Rd.) The farm’s bell is held by the Schuyler County Historical Society.
The Hatches were recognized by the newspaper chain Gannett in 1949 for having one of the first fruit and vegetable roadside stands on the east side of Seneca Lake.
Ernest kept a diary beginning in 1903 and made an entry nearly every day even if it was just to note the price they were able to sell eggs for or how many workmen they had boarded from the adjacent Valois Castle.
While the Townsend family had always been Methodists and had founded a church of that denomination in Townsendville, Ernest and Julia Hatch became members of the Valois Baptist Church. They were also members of the North Hector Grange and Ernest received an award in 1956 for 50 years of service. Ernest also served as the trustee of the one room school house that still stands just south of the more recent “Big Johnson’s”. For a time it was referred as the “E. Hatch School District”.
After declining physical and mental health over many years, Julia died in 1946 and was buried in the Hatch family plot at the Seneca Union Cemetery.
Ernest & Julia Hatch’s first born son, Clinton Linford, held a variety of jobs stretching to California during his brief 41 year life although his passion for gambling remained consistent. He died at home in 1949 and was buried in the Hatch family plot in SUC. His second wife, Harriet L. Chatfield, died in 1981 and was buried beside him.
Second son Arthur Ernest Hatch also tried a few jobs locally including operating a bus line between Watkins Glen and Geneva but always returned to farming at today’s 59210 Fausold Rd. In 1923, Arthur married Dorotha Helena Criss of Budd’s Corners (today the intersection of the Faushold and Dugue Rd.). Their first born, Joan, only lived for a few hours in 1926 and was the first family member buried in the Hatch plot in SUC.
While Ernest Hatch was a fairly early adopter of technology such as radios, cars and tractors, he always had a horse. Farmers’ attachment to their horses isn’t surprising since they spent about as many hours with them in the fields on many days as with their families at night. Ernest had a horse until the day he died in 1958. He’s buried in SUC beside wife Julia. The Hatch family cemetery plot is North-044–1/7.
seneca union cemetery 