Flashback Friday: Ted Hatch Talks Grand Canyon River Runner History
Our Last Interview Excerpt!
River trips really do “run” in the family. In this Flashback Friday, Ted Hatch discusses some of the families (other than the Hatches) who have been running rivers for generations. River runner history at it’s finest includes the Galloway fur trappers, described below.
Regrettably, this is where our interview transcript ends. But don’t worry—we’ll keep sharing all the Grand Canyon white water and Hatch family gems we find around the office!
E. Sowards: But then, I wanted to tell a little bit about your dad, and how you boys have carried it on through the years.
Ted: Yes. This is our second generation, going on our third generation. You see, I have had both of my sons down there, and they are being trained to work in the company and run boats.
E. Sowards: The fellow there now, is Wally Perry, right? His son is Marc.
Ted: This is Wally, and his great-granddad was Nathaniel Galloway.
E. Sowards: Oh is that right?
Ted: The one that ran in 1927.
E. Sowards: Oh, is that right?
Ted: Of course, Wally doesn’t like the river running. He’s completely different. I didn’t even know it when I hired him to work for me. But Nat Galloway trained his son, Parley, which was Wally’s granddad. Nat was his great-granddad. His name is on that little list of guys, in here, 1927. Yeah, here we go. Here’s Vincent Galloway, right there, and Parley.
E. Sowards: So his grandfather then, is Parley. His great-grandfather was…
Ted: Was Nathaniel. He went up here in 1897.
E. Sowards: So Parley was his son…
Ted: Wally’s granddad. He is Parley McCoy Galloway, and apparently I think he is related to the McCoys at Diamond Mountain. I am not sure. But they are the only McCoys that I really know in this area.
But these guys were fur trappers. They would go and get beaver, and in those days beaver were really profitable.
E. Sowards: The Galloways were fur trappers?
Ted: Yes, you see, the beaver pelts then were worth about twenty dollars, and twenty dollars then was a lot more than anyone could make in a day… They were paying men a dollar or two a day, so they really made money when they got a good bunch of hides.
They would run the river, and a lot of people thought that they were disreputable because they were always grubby and dirty and smelled of beaver. They lived under a rock somewhere on the river. I probably wouldn’t have associated with them that much either. Those early trappers were something else!
So much history in this series! We’ll have to delve into the Hatfields and McCoys (yes, those McCoys) another time. The interview may be over, but come back for more from Hatch River Expeditions as we celebrate our 90th year in Grand Canyon.
Book a 2024 or 2025 river trip today to experience the Canyon first hand!
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