Hugh Morgan Hatch

HUGH MORGAN HATCH was born in the Delair section of Pennsauken NJ on April 14, 1873 to Hugh Hatch and Caroline Stone Hatch. His father had been a truck farmer, and later successfully engaged, with his brother Joseph, in the brick business, before dying in 1924 at the age of 90. Hugh Morgan Hatch was also the nephew of Cooper Browning Hatch, who served as Mayor of Camden NJ from 1898 to 1902 and as the Sheriff of Camden County from 1908 to 1911.

Hugh Morgan Hatch was educated in local schools in Pennsauken. He then spent three years at the South Jersey Institute in Bridgeton NJ, and a year at Penn Charter School in Philadelphia. After a trip to Europe he attended Pierce Business School in Philadelphia, before joining his father in the brick business in Camden. Involving himself in politics as a Republican, he was elected Pennsauken Township Collector of Taxes in 1897.

On October 3, 1900 Hugh Morgan Hatch married Mary Pauline Gilmore, the daughter of Civil War veteran and well known hymn-writer Dr. Henry Lake Gilmore. A son, Paul Gilmore Hatch, was born in November of 1907.

In September of 1911, he entered into a partnership with J.R. Mick to operate an automobile dealership in Camden. The business, N.J. Auto & Supply, was primarily a Buick agency, but also sold Cadillac, Peerless, Hupmobile, Ford, and Pontiac autos at different periods through the 1920s. In 1916 the partners erected a new building on Delaware Avenue, where the business remained through February of 1942, when the agency was moved to the southwest corner of Federal Street and Wright Avenue. The business was sold to the Masson family in the 1950s, who, operating as Masson Buick, remained in Camden into the 1970s before moving to Route 70 in the eastern section of Cherry Hill NJ. In the 1930s he was also involved in banking in Merchantville.

Hugh Morgan Hatch’s brother, Isaiah S. Hatch, served as Camden County’s sheriff from 1920 to 1923, was a co-founder of the Merchants Trust bank and in later years ran the Hatch family’s brick works in Pennsauken, New Jersey.

Hugh Morgan Hatch and family were residing in Moorestown, New Jersey by 1930 and were still there when the census was taken in 1940.

HUGH MORGAN HATCH is a prominent and successful automobile dealer in Camden. He has been a public official and is a banker. He is also active in club affairs.

Hugh Morgan Hatch was born in Delair, Pennsauken Township, New Jersey, April 14, 1873, the son of Hugh Hatch, born in February, 1834, in Forest Hill Park, Stockton Township, New Jersey, who was a truck farmer and later in the brick business, and who died at the age of ninety years, in July, 1924, and Caroline (Stone) Hatch, a native of Marlton Pike, who passed away in 1911.

Hugh Morgan Hatch began his education in the public schools of Pennsauken Township, and after spending three years in the South Jersey Institute at Bridgeton, was for one year at Penn Charter School, and then took a trip to Europe. On his return, he entered the Peirce Business School, wherein he remained one year. At that time, his father was in the brick business in Camden, and when the youth completed his education, he joined the elder man. In September, 1911, Hugh Morgan Hatch, entering a partnership with J. R. Mick, established the Buick agency in Camden. In 1916 they built showrooms on Delaware Avenue, where they had bought ground, and began expansion of the business. When a few years later they took over the Peerless automobile agency, Mr. Hatch and Mr. Mick, together with several others, incorporated, Mr. Mick becoming president, their capitalization being $120,000. By 1923 their enterprise had grown to such extent in popularity and achievement that it did $700,000 worth of business.

Mr. Hatch is vice-president and director of the First National Bank of Merchantville. In 1897, he was elected on the Republican ticket to the office of Pennsauken Township Collector of Taxes.

Mr. Hatch is a thirty-second degree Mason; he belongs to the Consistory, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, of Camden; and the Crescent Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine; also is a member of Amity Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; the Camden Club, the Merchantville Field Club; and the Camden Chamber of Commerce. He is affiliated with the Episcopal Church.

Mr. Hatch married Mary Pauline Gilmore, of Cape May, New Jersey, in the Winona (New Jersey) Methodist Episcopal Church, October 30, 1900. Her father, Dr. Henry Lake Gilmore, a native of Ireland, became a successful dentist and popular hymn writer in the United States; Dr. Gilmore, who was a resident of Winona for twenty years before his death in 1919, was a Civil War veteran, having been brevetted a major, and was taken prisoner and held in Libby Prison from the time of his capture to the end of the war. Her mother, Pauline Letitia (Howard) Gilmore, died in 1920. Mr. and Mrs. Hatch have one son, Paul Gilmore, born November 20, 1907. They make their home at Morton’s Landing, Moorestown.

It is all very well to say that a man does not have to obey orders. That may be theoretically true, but like so many other things that leave all practical consideration out of sight, it is, to all intents, false. These men who serve upon our police force, upon our fire department and all the various other departments—and there are hosts of them on the payroll of the city and county—these men have families, wives and children. They have incurred debts, they have creditors, and it is very impracticable to say to a man knowing that he will lose his position, his income, ‘You didn’t have to obey orders.’

Judge Garrison said the effect of all this, although these men individually possess every element of courage and honor, is to break down and render less manly such public servants so that it is not possible to get all the service that— In short, Judge Garrison averred, it has come about that the system has been a government of the most unfit controlled by the most corrupt, and it is at this that the act is aimed.