Background
Rufus Hatch was born on June 24, 1832, at Wells, Maine, United States. His parents were Rufus and Huldah (Littlefield) Hatch.
Rufus Hatch was born on June 24, 1832, at Wells, Maine, United States. His parents were Rufus and Huldah (Littlefield) Hatch.
At nineteen Rufus Hatch went to Rockford, where he was employed for a time in a grocery and later had an interest in a drygoods store. He became interested in railroad building and had some part in the laying of the first rails in Wisconsin (later a division of the Chicago & Northwestern). After about four years at Rockford, during which he seems to have prospered, he went to Chicago as a commission merchant, joining the firm of Armstrong & Company. When the business went to the wall in the panic of 1857, he assumed the debts and after a long struggle paid them all. For six years he was a member of the original Chicago Board of Trade, but in 1864 he went to New York, borrowing $2, 000 with which to start a commission business.
After the close of the Civil War Hatch was unsuccessful in an attempt to get control of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, but later managed for Henry Keep the famous Northwestern pool, buying 10, 000 shares of the stock and distributing profits of $225, 000 to each of the participants. In a series of Rufus Hatch’s Circulars he had attacked the Vanderbilt interests in 1869-1870, exposing the stock-watering plans of the New York Central combination. His bear campaign at that time was unsuccessful and he failed for a considerable sum, but for a second time paid off his indebtedness.
Throughout the Wall Street campaigns of the Erie and New York Central and the failure of Jay Cooke, Hatch was an active operator. In 1874 he became president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which was then making, through its new ships, the Pekin and the Tokyo, its first important bid for transpacific trade. The Iron Steamboat Company in New York Harbor was another of his interests.
Hatch was popular with brokers and with newspaper men. Unlike most operators, he wrote interesting and pointed articles for the press, and in his own person was regarded as good “copy. ” He shared with Daniel Drew the sobriquet of “uncle. ” The semiclerical garb that he sometimes affected was considered a harmless foible. He is said to have coined the phrase, “lambs of Wall Street, ” and the label, “chromos, ” for securities which sold for more than he thought they were worth.
In the Northern Pacific crash of 1883 Hatch met his Waterloo. He sold his Stock-Exchange seat and went over to the Petroleum Exchange. For a time he was associated with James R. Keene in grain speculation. In 1884 he virtually retired from “the Street. ” A sufferer from Bright’s disease, he died suddenly after a coughing fit.
Rufus Hatch was the best-known of the New York brokers. He organized the Open Board of Brokers, which made itself so dangerous a competitor of the Stock Exchange that a merger soon became a matter of mutual interest and benefit. Upon its consummation, Hatch was offered the presidency of the Stock Exchange, but declined it.
Hatch was twice married: to Charlotte T. Hatch, a distant relative, in 1853, and after her death some twenty years later, to Mary Gray, who survived him.
