Ephraim Hatch

Born 30 November 1838 in New York to Wealtha Bradford and Ira Stearns Hatch
Married Rose Ellen King 13 June 1864 in Montana
Ephraim-Russell-Norma
Died 10 July 1916 in Woods Cross
Buried in Bountiful

1850 Census
1870 Census
1880 Census
1900 Census
1910 Census

The following information is from the Hatch Family Album written and compiled by Eph Hatch.

Ephraim Hatch is the son of Ira Stearns and Wealtha Bradford Hatch, and the father of John Russell Hatch. He was a quiet, peaceful man even though his life was punctuated with tragedy, war, and suffering. A few years after his birth November 30, 1837, in Farmersville, New York, the family with seven children moved west to Nauvoo to be with the body of the Church. His mother died there when Ephraim was just four years old. A kind stepmother brought order and happiness to this family but not for long as mobs drove them west in the winter of 1846.

The following summer saw two older brothers leave with the Mormon Battalion and his second mother died in childbirth later in March of 1847. In this weakened condition the family remained in Winter Quarters until the brothers returned. With a third mother and the family all together they left for the west when Ephraim was 11 years old. They arrived in Salt Lake City the first of October, 1849. This second stepmother did not remain with the family but went on to California. In 1852 his father, Ira, married a fourth wife and then in 1857 a fifth, when Ephraim was twenty years old and still single.

It was about this same time that General Daniel H. Wells of the Utah Nauvoo Legion assigned Ephraim Hatch and 40 or 50 other young men to serve under Major Lot Smith as a raiding party to turn back Johnston's army which was descending on the Saints from the east. No one could have been better trained or qualified for this assignment for his entire life had been one of survival, travel and obedience to Church authority. The exploits of these young men are almost unbelievable. They literally frustrated an army of over 2500 men, forcing them to pass through Salt Lake City peaceably and on Brigham Young's terms. Ephraim wore out three horses during this four month winter campaign. They followed orders explicitly, that there should be no bloodshed if at all possible. There is no parallel to this guerrilla warfare in history either before or after that time. The "treasonous" acts of Lot Smith's Raiders were later pardoned by the President of the United States when the truth of "Buchanan's Blunder" was finally brought out. Ephraim Hatch also served in the Utah Indian Wars and as usual made little noise about it. It was his nature to serve effectively and quietly.

Much of his life was spent in travel as a freighter. In 1860, on one of his seven trips across the plains he drove a wagon with mule teams carrying the machinery for the first paper mill in Utah. It was on a freighting trip to Montana that he met and married Rose Ellen King whose family was also going north by wagon.