HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2469        FILED ON: 1/16/2025

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No.         

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

_________________

PRESENTED BY:

Kenneth P. Sweezey and Kathleen R. LaNatra

_________________

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act designating a certain intersection in the town of Pembroke as the Lavina A. Hatch corner.

_______________

PETITION OF:

HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2469        FILED ON: 1/16/2025

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No.         

[SIMILAR MATTER FILED IN PREVIOUS SESSION
SEE HOUSE, NO. 3293 OF 2023-2024.]

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

_______________

In the One Hundred and Ninety-Fourth General Court
(2025-2026)

_______________

An Act designating a certain intersection in the town of Pembroke as the Lavina A. Hatch corner.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

The intersection of Congress Street and Washington Street, on Route 53 and Route 14, on the northwest corner of the intersection, at 749 Washington Street in the town of Pembroke, shall be designated and known as the Lavina A. Hatch Corner, in honor of Lavina A. Hatch, a founding member and secretary of the National Woman Suffrage Association of Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation shall erect and maintain suitable markers bearing the designation in compliance with the standards of the department.

Lavina A. Hatch was born on May 20, 1836, in Pembroke, Massachusetts, and died on March 20, 1903, at the age of sixty-six. She was an animal rights activist, a suffragist, and an active volunteer in various organizations. She was a founding member and secretary of the National Woman Suffrage Association of Massachusetts and kept records of the Boston Political Class, which was an auxiliary organization. She attended Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, and received additional education at Hanover Academy in Hanover, and Partridge Academy in Duxbury. She was employed as a schoolmistress in the local towns, where she was remembered as a teacher who not only disapproved of corporal punishment but succeeded in controlling even the unruliest students. She gave up teaching to care for her brother's children at the death of their mother, later adopting her niece and nephew. Hatch also cared for an invalid mother at the family home and served as postmistress in East Pembroke in the early 1870s. Lavina Hatch was an advocate for women's rights during the late 19th century. She worked closely with Susan B. Anthony, a prominent American women's rights activist, on a chapter for the fourth volume of the History of Woman Suffrage. The two also collaborated on writing on the work of the Massachusetts National Association.