Hatch, Ozias M.

Born: 1814-04-11 Hillsboro Center, New Hampshire

Died: 1893-03-12 Springfield, Illinois

Flourished:

Ozias M. Hatch was a merchant, circuit court clerk, state secretary of state, and friend of Abraham Lincoln. Hatch’s father wanted him to become a physician, but Hatch decided against studying medicine to pursue a career as a merchant. At the age of fifteen, he moved to Boston, where for seven years he worked as a salesman in a wholesale and retail grocery establishment. Hatch moved to Griggsville, Illinois, in 1836 to be near his parents and siblings, who had moved there one year earlier. He became a partner with the firm Isaac A. Hatch & Company. This partnership dissolved in 1838, and Hatch subsequently became a partner in the firm of McNeil & Hatch. Hatch continued in the mercantile trade until 1841, when Judge Samuel D. Lockwood appointed him clerk of the Pike County Circuit Court. He remained circuit court clerk for seven years, after which he re-entered the mercantile business in partnership with his brother. Hatch also engaged in agriculture. In October 1850, he was farming in Pike County and owned real property valued at $3,600. In November 1850, Hatch won election, as a Whig, to the Illinois House of Representatives, serving from January 1851 to June 1852. In 1856, he won election as the secretary of state for Illinois as a candidate of the Republican Party. Hatch won another four-year term in 1860. By that year, he owned real property valued at $20,000 and had a personal estate of $12,000. Hatch was a friend of Lincoln and supported him in the presidential election of 1860. During the Civil War, Hatch played a pivotal role in raising Illinois troops to fight against the Confederacy. He declined to seek a third term in 1864 and retired to private life. Hatch was among the original members of the National Lincoln Monument Association.

In December 1860, Hatch married Julia R. Enos, with whom he had three children.

Joseph Wallace, Past and Present of the City of Springfield and Sangamon County Illinois (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1904), 2:1477-78; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 217-18; The Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 13 March 1893, 1:3-4; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Pike County, IL, 73; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Springfield, Sangamon County, IL, 263; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Sangamon County, 13 December 1860, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Gravestone, Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, IL.