Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

462 GENEALOGICAL NOTES OP BAENSTABLE FAMILIES.
and in some instances this seems to have been considered as the
equivalent of the freeman's oath. In August 1643, his name appears
on the roll of those "able to bear arms in Barnstable," and
in the following January on the list of approved inhabitants of
Barnstable.
Very little is certainly known respecting him. He does not
appear to have been employed at any time, in any public business.
He was not a man of wealth, and no record of his lands
has been preserved. In 1648 Mr. Anthony Thacher claimed
eight acres in. the "West Field"* in Yarmouth that had been
bought of Thomas Hatch. This was the usual allotment, and the
probability is that he had an equal proportion of the lands both in
Yarmouth and in Barnstable assigned to him. I am inclined to
the opinion that his houselot in Barnstable was near the Crocker
farm at West Barnstable. Lands in that vicinity were afterwards
owned by his son Jonathan, and by him sold to Capt.
Thomas Dimmock.
He died in 1661, leaving a widow Grace and son Jonathan
and daughter Lydia, wife of Henry Taylor. Mr. Savage calls him
"a young man." He was a grandfather and in my judgment had
ceased to be young.
A pleasant story is told respecting his courtship. It is said
that he was son of a farmer and served his father before learning
the trade of a tailor. His wife was also a farmer's daughter, and
in time of harvest assisted him in the fields, and was very expert
in the use of the sickle. Two young men asked her hand in marriage
and it was agreed that the one who should reap the larger
piece in a given time should win the prize. The land was marked
off and an equal proportion assigned to Miss Grace. She was
the best reaper, and having decided that she would marry Thomas
Hatch, she slyly cut over on the part set off to him, and in consequence
Thomas came out ahead, claimed and received her hand in
marriage.
This story was related by a grandson of Thomas, and has
been preserved as a family tradition, and whether true or false is
immaterial. I doubt whether Grace, the widow of Thomas
Hatch, was the heroine of the story ; if so, she was different
from other mothers—she must have been a second wife—for if
Jonathan and Lydia had been her children, she would not have allowed
them in youth to have been aliens from their father's house
and exposed to all the temptations of a wicked world. I have no
other evidence that she was a second wife. I want no other.
Thomas Hatch was a church member, and a freeman, a man
whose life was a living testimony of his fidelity to the principles
*"The WeBt Field" waa an open tract, cultivated by the Indians, bounded southerly by
Dennis Pond, westerly by the bounds of Barnstable, northerly it extended nearly to the
present County road, and easterly to Hawes' Lane. Xhe lot of Thomas Hatch was in the
immediate Ticmity of the homestead of the writer.