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Andrew Jackson Hatch

Entrepreneur, Rancher, State Legislator and Nevada’s Surveyor General

By: Paul S. Pace, PLS

The California gold rush of 1849 called to hundreds of
thousands from every state in the Union and from all over
the world. Getting to California presented the multitudes
with serious obstacles, but they came, nevertheless. At
the outset, most of the gold seekers arrived by sea. But
over time, more and more came overland, and from every
direction. It would become the largest mass migration in
U.S. history, a great boon for the United States, a disaster
for the indigenous peoples living there.

Among the 300,000 souls who thronged to the gold fields
were the Hatch brothers, Roderick and Andrew. Roderick
left their native Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania in
1850, headed to California’s gold county. He opened a
mercantile in Tuolumne County, married Nieves Torres, a
Mexican woman, and settled down.

In 1852, Andrew followed his brother to California. There
he took up mining and later teaching school until 1857,
when Andrew went to work as a surveyor working under A.
W. von Schmidt. In 1858, he was appointed a U.S. Deputy
Surveyor by California Surveyor General J. W. Mandeville.
He performed numerous Public Land surveys, mostly in
Tulare and Kern Counties.

By 1860, the frenetic mining activity in California had
slowed. The brothers opted to uproot and join the “Rush to
Washoe”, the silver strike in and around Virginia City, Utah
Territory. Instead of joining the growing multitudes on Sun
Mountain, the two men prospected in the nearby Sierra
foothills. There they discovered what they believed to be a
rich silver deposit. A joint venture was agreed upon and it
started with great promise.

The metal bearing quartz they found in the hills was near a
little pleasant creek issuing from the nearby Sierra. The ore carried heavy amounts of lead and zinc together with smaller amounts
of silver and gold. The deposit was at the foot of Mount Rose, in what was then Carson County, Utah Territory. Because the ore was
heavy with the lead sulfide mineral galena, they named their workings Galena Hill, in their newly formed Galena Mining District,
and named the stream Galena Creek.

So promising was the ore the brothers erected a quartz mill to process it. Next came a small smelter to extract the silver from the
crushed ore, along with a small townsite that most likely Andrew laid out.
At that time, Seneca Marlette was the County Surveyor for Carson County. He soon named Andrew as his deputy. From that point
on Andrew worked steadily as a surveyor, but also took on other positions when the opportunity arose.

De Groot’s 1860 map of “The Washoe Mines”
There was a small rush to Galena and by 1863 the town boasted five stores, two boarding houses, a justice court, a school house
that also served as a community hall, twelve saloons and dozens of homes. Since Galena was at the tree line, lumbering operations
also began. Eleven saw mills supplied the Comstock’s insatiable demand for timber and quickly became the settlement’s leading
economic engine. Most of the sawyers and mill hands were Italian immigrants.

When the Territory of Nevada was carved out of western Utah Territory, Andrew was named Justice of the Peace in the newly
formed Washoe County. He held court in Galena, Peavine and Washoe City.

6 The Nevada Traverse Vol.50, No.1, 2023