Ira Hatch

Ira Hatch (5 August 1835 – 30 September 1909) was a prominent LDS missionary.He spoke 13 languages and spent most of his life working with the Native Americans of Southern Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. One of Hatch's wives was Miraboots, also known as Sarah Dyson, who was a Paiute. He was one of the founding fathers of Ramah, New Mexico.

Hatch was the son of Ira Sterns Hatch who had joined the LDS church in Kirtland and had been in the Mormon Battalion. [ [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hatch/ISH.html Life Sketch of Ira Stearns Hatch ] ] Hatch was born in Farmersville, Cautargus County, new York. [ [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hatch/orinparents.html Ira Stearns and Wealtha Bradford Hatch Family ] ]

Hatch was among the first missionaries sent to proselyte in the Southern Indian Mission in 1854. [ [http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd1153.pdf Skousen, Christina, "Toiling Among the House of Israel:A Comparison of Puritan and Mormon Missions to the Indians" (Master's Thesis, Brigham Young University, 2005) p. 34-35] 1858 Hatch was among the missionaries sent to work with the Native Americans along the Muddy River in Nevada. That year Hatch was also among the first Mormon missionaries to preach the gospel to the Hopi [Skousen. "Toiling", p. 41] In 1862 Hatch was involved in another mission to the Hopi. He was one of three missionaries left behind when Jacob Hamblin lead the rest of the missionaries north. [http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/MTAF&CISOPTR=34220&REC=2 "History of Mormon Missionary work with the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni Indians", p. 28]

In 1866, during Utah's Black Hawk War Hatch lead a group that visited the Shebits and Kiabab bands of Indians. [Larson, Karl Andrew. "Erastus Snow: The Life of a Missionary and Pioneer for the Early Mormon Church" (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1971) p. 396]

On one occasion Hatch was serving a mission among the Mojave with Dudley Leavitt. The Mojave were going to kill Hatch and Leavitt, but Hatch offered a prayer for the people's hearts to be softened and they let Hatch and Leavitt go. [cite book
title=Jacob Hamblin, a Narrative of His Personal Experience, as a Frontiersman ...
author=Jacob Hamblin, James A. Little
year=1971
publisher=Ayer Publishing
isbn=0836958993
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=QO87mBHi1woC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=Ira+Hatch&source=web&ots=oV7kPNBWtV&sig=NheOZAek8QMpie1V3QTuMPrUCnc&hl=en#PPA50,M1]

In 1871 Hatch served as Erastus Snow's interpreter during a visit to the Navajo. [Larson. "Snow", p. 442]
Blaine Yorgason has written "To Sour with the Eagle" (1993) a novel based on the story of Ira Hatch and Maraboot. [ [http://mormonlit.lib.byu.edu/lit_work.php?w_id=1045 Mormon Literature Database - To Soar with the Eagle ] ]

Hatch was latter among those who served as a missionary among the Navajo, basing his efforts out of Ramah, New Mexico. [ [http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/MTAF&CISOPTR=34220&REC=2 "Missions", p. 71]

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