NATHANIEL HATCH.
Colonel Estes Hatch was one of the most prominent and wealthy men of Dorchester. He owned many negro slaves who worked on his extensive estate, comprising sixty acres of land on the southerly side of Dudley street, lying part in Roxbury and a part in Dorchester. It included Little Woods, afterward known as Swan's woods.
Col. Hatch commanded the Troop of Horse, in Boston, led a company at the capture of Louisberg and died in 1759. He was prominent in town affairs, and held the principal military offices, and at the time of his death was Brigadier General of Horse. His wife was Mary, daughter of Rev. Benjamin Rolfe, her father and mother and their youngest child were killed by the Indians in their home at Haverhill in 1708. Col. Hatch and Mary Rolfe were married Nov. 9th, 1716.
Nathaniel Hatch, son of Col. Hatch, graduated at Harvard College in 1742, and subsequently held the office of Clerk of the Courts. He was a firm loyalist, and at the evacuation of Boston in 1776, he went to Halifax with the British troops. In 1778 he was proscribed and banished, and in 1779 was included in the Conspiracy Act, by which his large and valuable estate was confiscated, it was bought afterwards by Captain James Swan, who paid £18,000 for it, and who soon afterwards offered it to Gov. Hancock for £45,000. Writing to Hancock, Swan say: "The mansion house can be refitted in as elegant a manner as it once was for about £4,000." During Swan's residence here he made the house a seat of hospitality, entertaining among others persons of distinction. The Marquis de Viomel, second in command of Rochambeau's army, Admiral d'Estaing, the Marquis de Lafayette and General Knox.[255]
Nathaniel Hatch married July 7, 1755, Elizabeth Lloyd. They had several children. Paxton, born Oct. 9, 1758; Mary, born Jan. 14, 1760; Addington, born Sept. 22, 1761; Jane, born March 10, 1767; Susannah Paxton, born March 13, 1770. Nathaniel Hatch died in 1780.
LIST OF CONFISCATED ESTATES BELONGING TO NATHANIEL HATCH IN SUFFOLK COUNTY AND TO WHOM SOLD.
To Samuel Dunn, Jr., July 11, 1781; Lib. 132, fol. 263; Land, 60 A.; and mansion house in Dorchester, road to Dorchester meeting house N.; Jonas Humphrey, Thomas Wiswall and James Bird E. and S.; John Holbrook S.; John Williams, Samuel Humphrey and brook between Dorchester and Roxbury W. and N.