Robert Petch

1795 — 1851

Native of England; sailed to California in 1846 on ship Brooklyn with his wife, Mary, and two pre-teenage children; baptized Francis A. Hammond in December 1847; undertook three successful trips to the gold fields in which he made over $2400 in 1848; became a widower in August 1850; resident of San Francisco in November 1850; died in San Francisco. (See Bullock, Ship Brooklyn Saints, 212; Owens, Gold Rush Saints, 248–50; Hammond, “My Introduction to Mormonism,” 367; GQC journal, Nov. 7, 1850.)