In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Stewart Hatch: A Lifetime Trading with the Navajo and Ute
  • Larry Dalrymple (bio)

The highway connecting Farmington, New Mexico, and the Navajo Reservation traverses the treeless bluffs on the north side of the San Juan River above the scattered houses and farmlands below. The Fruitland road sign directs traffic to the left through green pastures before connecting with the old, historic thoroughfare. At the junction a gas station and video shop share opposite corners with the abandoned post office and Fruitland Trading Company. A gravel road heads south toward the San Juan River past grazing sheep before terminating at Hatch Brothers Trading Post. Built next to a large pond formed by the river, it is guarded by an old cottonwood. During the 1950s, Navajos forded the river nearby in their horse-drawn wagons passing in front of the trading post.

The business has been in operation for over sixty years with Stewart Hatch now assisted by his son Charles. Hatch and his wife, Elsie May, live adjacent to the store while Charles, Alfrieta, and family reside nearby. Originally in partnership with his brother Claude, Hatch is now sole owner. At ninety-four, he still has a passion for life and enjoys conversations with his Ute and Navajo customers in their language as well as tourists and others interested in the history of the area. He is an astute observer of the people and events that have shaped the history of the Four Corners. His memory is unsurpassed as are his anecdotes and stories. The interior of the store provides a rich tapestry of trading representing earlier days when customers arrived by horse and wagon and more recent times driving a pickup. [End Page 495]


Click for larger view
View full resolution

Stewart Hatch, May 6, 2011, on his ninety-second birthday, manning the counter as he has done for the past sixty-two years. Photograph by Steve Moreno.


Click for larger view
View full resolution

The interior of the trading post is a museum containing items sold in the past and those that are still necessary: canned goods, meat, and cooking essentials, along with baskets, rugs, cradleboards, and weaving spindles and combs. Photograph, ca. 2007, by Larry Dalrymple.

[End Page 496]

The information for this article was gathered by the author through conversations held with Stewart Hatch on three different occasions. All were held inside his trading post in Fruitland, New Mexico. These informal meetings usually lasted four to five hours in the mornings of September 11–12, 2007; July 14–15, 2008; and the afternoon of October


Click for larger view
View full resolution

Ira Stearns Hatch (1835–1909), Mormon missionary to the Indians and grandfather of Stewart Hatch, ca. 1905. Photograph courtesy of San Juan County Historical Society.

[End Page 497]

7, 2009. Two additional brief visits in 2010 and 2011 were made to verify the information collected. His parents and grandparents played a significant role in the settlement of southern Utah, northern Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. It is a legacy of pioneers, Indians, trading, and settlement in new country. It is also a story of the assimilation of cultures.

Hatch’s grandfather, Ira Stearns Hatch (1835–1909), was raised in upstate New York before joining the Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) and emigrating to Utah Territory. A devout Mormon, Hatch was appointed by the church fathers as a missionary to work with Indian groups, learn their language, and convert them; he reportedly spoke five different languages. Hatch and fellow missionary Jacob Hamblin* traveled extensively throughout southern Utah and northern Arizona in this capacity. The church’s policy of “assistance not resistance” formulated their work. Both men, along with Southern Paiutes they had gathered, acted as guides and interpreters for John Wesley Powell’s exploration of the Colorado River and surrounding country.

Sarah Maraboots was a young Southern Paiute–Navajo girl who was raised by a Mormon family after the death of her Paiute mother. She was fifteen when she married Ira Hatch in 1859, a marriage encouraged by church authorities who sought to improve relations between settlers and Indians. The following year she and Hatch along with Hamblin and eight others...

pdf