Sylvanus Hatch
Port Lavaca, Calhoun County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born in Massachusetts June 1, 1788, died Oct. 16, 1885. His wife Phamelia Louisa Nicholson Hatch. Born in Mississippi, January 21, 1788, died February 22, 1850.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This marker records the lives of Sylvanus Hatch, born in Massachusetts in 1788, and his wife Phamelia, born in Mississippi the same year, whose long lives spanned the founding decades of the American republic and Texas. Hatch lived to 1885, dying on the Texas Gulf coast near Port Lavaca. The stone preserves the memory of an early settler couple in this corner of the state.
Why it matters
Simple settler markers like this document the individual lives behind Texas's early Anglo-American settlement of the coastal plains.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hatch Cemetery
Port Lavaca, TX
This burial ground served the family of Captain Sylvanus Hatch, a Cape Cod–born builder who served in the War of 1812 as an adjutant under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans before later joining the Texas War for Independence. The Hatch family reached the Chocolate Creek area by 1842, and the captain established the cemetery in 1850 when his wife Pamela died of cholera—an outbreak that also killed German immigrants who had landed at Indianola and lie buried here. Hatch and two Confederate-veteran sons are interred among other pioneering families.
Clark Cemetery
Port Lavaca, TX
This burial ground served the Clark family of the vanished Chocolate community, named for nearby Chocolate Creek where Sylvanus Hatch and his brother Joseph settled in 1846. Residents raised cattle and horses, farmed, and worshipped at St. Paul's-on-the-Prairie, whose building also housed the school. In the mid-1850s John Clark arrived and built stock pens known as Clark's Station along the Indianola Railroad, letting area farmers ship crops and cattle to market; he deeded this cemetery in 1899.
Moses Johnson, M.D.
Port Lavaca, TX
Born in Virginia and educated in New Hampshire, Dr. Moses Johnson moved from Illinois to Port Lavaca around 1837 and then to Austin in 1840. A physician and active Mason, he served as mayor of Austin and as treasurer of the Republic of Texas under his friend President Anson Jones. He died of yellow fever and was buried on his ranch alongside his wife Olivia.
Calhoun County
Port Lavaca, TX
Calhoun County was carved from Victoria, Jackson, and Matagorda counties and organized in 1846, the year Texas joined the Union, with the coastal town of Port Lavaca as its seat. It was named for John C. Calhoun, the South Carolina statesman who served in Congress and the Cabinet and as vice president of the United States. The marker records the county's creation at the moment the young state was organizing its government along the Gulf coast.