MARY "POLLY" COOPER MATHENY

1800-1856

Contributed by Don Rivara

Re: Matheny Diggins

El Dorado, CA

The firstborn of Isaiah and Elizabeth Montier Cooper, Mary, nicknamed

"Polly," was born 23 February 1800, in Hardin County, Kentucky, no doubt. We

haven't any documentation on Hardin being the the county of her birth, but all

evidence points to it. She was the only Cooper child born in Kentucky.

Job Cooper, Mary's great grandfather, lived there at the time with his

second wife, Rebecca "Becky" and other relatives. The Coopers probably lived on

a farm adjacent to that of Isaiah and Rachel Younger Matheny. (In the 1810

U.S.Census the widowed Becky Cooper was in the next-enumerated household to

Isaiah Matheny's.) According to her granddaughter Lenore Rogers, Mary was a

second cousin to her future husband, Daniel Matheny, son of Isaiah and Rachel

Younger Matheny. Delving into old records of what are now Jefferson, Mineral,

and Hampshire counties, West Virginia, one can find early Cooper-Matheny

connections, but the kinship between the two has yet to be proven. ( This may

prove to be an impossible task because this area was the most actively contested

throughout the Civil War. Winchester, the county seat of adjacent Frederick

County, Virginia, changed hands between North and South some seventy-five times

during the war. Romney, county seat of Hampshire County, changed hands some

twenty-five times. The courthouses and their records suffered considerably.)

Earlier, from the time of the French and Indian War, the family of Thomas Cooper

lived in what is now Clark County, Virginia, between the Shenandoah River and

the Blue Ridge; the Mathenys lived nearby in what is now Jefferson Countly,

West Virginia, between the Shenandoah River and the Blue Ridge--they were

clearly neighbors. In Kentucky there were Youngers who lived across the Rolling

Fork of the Salt River from the Coopers and Mathenys in Bullitt County, probably

kinsmen of Rachel Younger Matheny, Daniel's mother.

Mary didn't spend much of her life in Kentucky. Before she was three, the

family moved north across the Ohio River into Clark County, Indiana Territory.

There she spent a childhood worrying about the Indian threat. The drunken,

brawling Indians who came to trade at Springville were people from whom she

learned to stay away. When she was but eleven, the territory became embroiled

over British-incited Shawnee depradations. General William Henry Harrison

defeated "the Prophet," Tecumseh's brother, at Tippecanoe Creek that year.

Nearby at the Pigeon Roost settlement, Indians attacked, savagely killing the

settlers and scalping them. A slain pregnant woman even had her child torn from

her womb and scalped. Another dazed woman wandered into a blockhouse a few

miles from the settlement carrying her dead baby she had inadvertently smothered

while holding her hand over the child's mouth while hiding herself and her

children from the attacking Indians. Mary's father joined the war to protect

his family.

It probably wasn't until after the War of 1812, when things settled down on

the Indiana-Kentucky frontier, that Mary went away to finishing school. There

was one in Kentucky (Lexington, I think). It was probably that one that Mary

attended. We know of Mary's attendance there from her daughter Charlotte

Matheny Kirkwood's memoirs. Mary was forever trying to instill the comportment

of a "lady" into her daughter, who said that her mother's efforts were not very

productive.

Young Daniel Matheny, serving under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New

Orleans, like all the participants at the battle there in January of 1815, was

unaware that the British and Americans had already signed a peace treaty ending

the War of 1812 some weeks earlier. When the news arrived, Daniel was mustered

out of the army and returned to his parents' home in Hardin County, Kentucky.

While in New Orleans, Daniel had witnessed a slave auction. An old slave

begged the young man to buy him, sensing a better life with him than in the

killing sugar cane brakes of Louisiana. This event forever turned Matheny

against slavery, and, said his daughter Charlotte, caused him to move to the

North. The Ohio River even then was a boundary separating the Southern slave

culture from the North, but it wouldn't be until 1821 when the Missouri

Compromise was reached that the river became the official boundary between slave

and free states. Sometime in 1817 or 1818 Daniel, with his brothers Joshua and

Henry and sister Mary Matheny Cooper (Mrs. William Wood Cooper), crossed the

Ohio, the northern boundary of Hardin County, Kentucky, and settled in Indiana

by his kinsman Isaiah Cooper in what was to become Owen County.

Our earliest record of Daniel in Owen County is July 4, 1818, when Isaiah

Cooper got into an altercation with a neighbor while betting on Daniel's

marksmanship. Apparently Daniel was quite a marksman. Since Owen County had

first been settled in 1817, Daniel wouldn't have been there any earlier than

that.

There was clearly a self-confidence about Daniel Matheny that made him a

leader among his peers. It was exhibited throughout his life. That he was

attracted to Mary, whose finishing-school education gave her a touch more appeal

than most frontier girls, is no surprise. They were married in Owen County,

Indiana, 19 December 1819.

The Mathenys had their first two or three children while in Owen County.

Adam was born 20 December 1820; Elizabeth, 26 March 1823; Rachel, 9 December

1824 (Rachel did not survive to adulthood.) 1824 was the year that Isaiah

Cooper was commissioned as a justice of the peace and began his decline. That

was about the time when Daniel and Mary moved to Edgar County, Illinois, a short

distance west. Records show that on January 24, 1825, Daniel and Mary purchased

68.84 acres in Edgar County at $1.25 per acre in a federal land sale.

It was in Edgar County in 1825 that Daniel Matheny found religion and joined

the Methodist Episcopal Church--his wife had converted five years earlier.

Daniel's obituary in the Pacific Christian Advocate, 29 February 1872, p.69,

gives the date and place. His wife's obituary in the 6 October 1856 issue said

she converted in 1820 in Edgar County, Illinois, but it should have stated Owen

County, Indiana. Religion was to become an important part of their lives.

The religion of the frontier was emotional religion. Whereas the

Presbyterian Church was the cult of the well-to-do, the Methodists and Baptists

appealed to the people, for they preached free will and universal grace. A team

of preachers would come together at "camp meetings,"as many as twenty or thirty,

and preach for four or five days by day and by night, their flock bringing

their own tents or wagons for temporary housing. These camp meetings provided a

natural outlet for the penned-up frontier emotionalism. The red glare of the

campfires was reflected from the tents, surrounded by the blackness of the

forest. A hundred persons might fall like dead men when under the spell of a

powerful sermon, while the groans of the spiritually wounded would echo through

the woods. Some of these ministers, called "sons of thunder," were mighty men.

They roamed from region to region, with or without road or path, with stools for

chairs and dirt floors for carpets, sleeping on bear and buffalo skins. One of

the most notable on the frontier, Lorenzo Dow, would emerge from the woods,

melancholy, tall and cadaverous, with his long black cloak and reddish beard and

his wild hair streaming over his shoulder. [Our Literary Heritage, by Van Wyck

Brooks and Otto Bettmann, E.P.Dutton & Co., New York, 1956, p.25] That Dow, a

Methodist, was influential in the spiritual life of the Matheny family is

evidenced by the two Matheny grandsons later named for him.

In Edgar County, two more children were born: Isaiah Cooper Matheny, 2

December 1826; and Daniel Boone Matheny, 5 January 1829. Shortly after Daniel's

birth the Mathenys moved to Schuyler County, Illinois, on the western side of

the state. The Mathenys left behind the lonely grave of their daughter, Rachel,

who had died in Edgar County in 1828.

It was in 1830 when the Mathenys arrived in Schuyler County, according to

Elizabeth Matheny Hewitt's autobiography. Should anyone research the Matheny

history in Schuyler County, he or she needs to beware of confusing the two

Daniel Mathenys who lived there. Both had similar military histories; they were

probably cousins. The other came to Schuyler County in 1826 from Indiana and

left in 1831 for Iowa. (By 1840 the other Daniel and his siblings had settled

in Ray County, Missouri, near where Mary and Daniel settled in 1837.) Our

Daniel registered three land patents in Schuyler County on 27 November 1830; 27

April 1831; and 28 February 1834. In 1834 he and Mary sold 51 acres; in 1836

they sold a similar-sized parcel; and, on 7 October 1837, they sold their 100+

acre farm for $1,600 (Deed Book "F", Page 435)

It was while the Mathenys were in Schuyler County that the Black Hawk War

broke out. It was legislated that the county had to provide 150 militia

members. The 23 of April 1832 was appointed as the day of mustering to attain

the 150, either by volunteers or by draft. 400 men met at Rushville that day.

William Marshall, the orator of the day, rallied the men to volunteer, to shun

the brand of cowardice, and to avoid disgracing their county by its requiring a

draft. At the end of his long speech, he struck up the marching band and

followed it as the first man to enlist. Not quite an hour elapsed until the

requisite number of 150 had enlisted. Daniel Matheny was one of the number. He

was selected as first lieutenant in Captain John Stennett's Company, Odd

Battalion, Mounted Rangers, Illinois Volunteers.(pp.159-160 History of Schuyler

and Brown Counties, Illinois)

It was probably in the Black Hawk War that Daniel met Abraham Lincoln, who

was serving from Sangamon County. Charlotte Matheny Kirkwood said her father

"knew and loved" Lincoln. But there are other possibilities as to how they met.

The best man at Lincoln's marriage to Mary Todd was a Matheny.

After a ninety-day enlistment expired and Black Hawk had been put on a

steamboat headed for an Eastern prison, Daniel Matheny was mustered out of the

service at Yellow Banks or Macomb, Mississippi (1856 Bounty Land Claim

statement). Why Daniel needed to be in Mississippi when the "war" had been an

intra-Illinois affair could be explained if he was one of the militia sent to

guard the steamboat carrying Black Hawk to the East. If this is so, then Daniel

probably interacted with a young soldier assigned to the escort, Jefferson

Davis, future president of the Confederate States of America, who expressed pity

on seeing the great conquered chief in chains. It is ironic that the same fate

would befall Davis some thirty-three years later after the defeat of the South

in the Civil War.

In Schuyler County, the Mathenys became the parents of two more children:

Mary, 4 April 1832; and Jasper Newton, 4 August 1834. Mary would have been only

nineteen days old at the time her father attended the Rushville muster. They

also made the acquaintance of the Thomas Cooper (III) family. Thomas was the

elderly first cousin of Mary's grandfather, Nathan Cooper. It is probable that

the encounter was by chance because Thomas had lived in Ohio for two decades,

far from Mary's family. These newly- found relatives apparently bonded with the

young Mathenys because two of Thomas's sons later settled in Wheatland, Oregon,

by the Mathenys.

In 1837 the "Platte Purchase" was opened to settlement in northwestern

Missouri. The Mathenys sold out and headed there. They became residents of

Platte County, Missouri. Here on 5 May 1838, Mary gave birth to their last

child, Charlotte, who would be called "Lottie." As elsewhere, the Mathenys

prospered, and, by this time, their older children were nearly grown. They

were joined here by the family of Daniel's brother Henry Matheny, who was

married to Mary's sister, Rachel Cooper.

A religious sect called Mormons were creating quite a stir in the Mathenys'

area of Missouri in 1839. Their polygamous ways and unorthodox beliefs

unsettled their sanctimonious neighbors. Incidents occurred which only incited

greater passions between the two groups. Finally Governor Lilburn Boggs decreed

that the Mormons must be driven out of Missouri or "exterminated." He called

for militia volunteers. Daniel Matheny volunteered and was elected captain of a

company. It was during this so-called "Mormon War" that Alexander Doniphan

defied military orders and refused to execute Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader,

and other Mormon leaders; and a vengeful Mormon, in the middle of the night,

sneaked into the residence of Governor Boggs and stabbed him, albeit not

fatally. The Mormons were forced out of Missouri. They headed eastward,

crossing the Mississippi River to establish a new city, Nauvoo, on the Illinois

side of the river. Nauvoo was to prosper until the Mormons' intolerant

neighbors there drove them westward in 1846 to their final refuge in the Salt

Lake Valley.

About the time of the Mormon War, Mary's brother Enoch joined his sisters in

Missouri. It was there in Platte County that the two oldest children of Daniel

and Mary married and further expanded the family. Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth

Matheny married eighteen-year-old Henry Hewitt, 25 February 1841. Adam

Matheny's bittersweet elopement with sixteen-year-old Sarah Jane Layson five

days before the Mathenys embarked for Oregon is poignantly narrated by Charlotte

Kirkwood in her book Into the Eye of the Setting Sun. The excitement of

planning the trip, the discarding or sale of all non-essential possessions, and

the tearful partings are all touched on by Charlotte. Mary Matheny emerges from

the narrative as courageous, kind, resourceful, stern as a parent, generous,

pious, unpretentious, and desirous of living a more refined life.

Besides the Kirkwood book, there are other books written on the 1843 Great

Migration. Peter Burnett's memoirs, Recollections and Opinions of an Old

Pioneer, are available in many historical repositories, as are those of Jesse A.

Applegate, a son of Lindsay Applegate. Besides these, there are several others

that give the interesting details of that journey. It was the first wagon train

to cross the plains all the way to Oregon, and Daniel Matheny was one of the

leaders from the onset.

Matheny led a party of wagons from Platte County to Westport (Independence)

and at the organizational meeting there was commissioned, with William Martin,

to seek the services of Captain John Gantt as pilot to guide the party as far as

Fort Hall (Pocatello, Idaho). (Burnett, p. 101) The wagons left Missouri on May

22, 1843. At the Platte River, Dr. Marcus Whitman, returning from a visit to

the Presbyterian Council of Bishops in the East, caught up with emigrants and

traveled with them to advise them and attend to their health needs. At Fort Hall

some Indians from Whitman's mission awaited the doctor with distressing news.

In his absence, some of the Indians had burned the mission mill; Mrs. Whitman

had fled for safety to the Methodist mission at The Dalles. So the doctor left

for his mission, promising to send Sticcus, a Christian Indian who could speak

English, to guide the emigrants. Matheny was one of three men selected at Fort

Hall to scout the remainder of the journey for the best route for the wagons to

proceed. It was these three scouts that laid out the exact path the last half

of the Oregon Trail would take. And it was the men of the 1843 emigration who

hacked down the trees and made the wagon road through Oregon's Blue Mountains.

Henry Hewitt, driving one of Daniel and Mary Matheny's wagons, claimed to be the

first person to drive a wagon down the Blue Mountains into the Umatilla Valley

and second to drive an immigrant wagon to The Dalles, considered the end of the

Oregon Trail.

The Willamette Valley was the goal of the Oregon-bound immigrants. It lay

on the other side of the formidable Mt. Hood and the Cascade Range. The two

choices for reaching the Willamette for the immigrants intent on reaching their

goal that November were the treacherous Columbia River by raft or the longer

ordeal over Mt. Hood. The Mathenys entrusted their possessions to their son

Adam and his friend/cousin-by-marriage, Aaron Layson, who took them to Fort

Vancouver by raft. Daniel and Mary chose the route over Mt. Hood for their

family and livestock. The shortage of food and bitter cold caused the family a

great hardship before Adam and Aaron reached them with some biscuits that they

had purchased at the fort. The family then headed to Fort Vancouver, belonging

to the British Hudson Bay Company. The immigrants who had survived the quicker

river route already occupied all the available space at the fort, so the

Mathenys had to sleep in their rain-soaked tents.

An empty cabin was found in the Tualatin Valley near present-day Hillsboro.

The Mathenys purchased the cabin as a temporary shelter. It lay near a tiny

cabin that Adam Hewitt, a brother of the Mathenys' son-in-law, Henry Hewitt, had

built for Henry and the Mathenys' daughter Elizabeth. [Adam Hewitt had arrived

in Oregon the previous year.] Here the family planted their seeds and other

crops in the spring of 1844. They lived here eight months. Their closest

neighbor, the legendary Joe Meek, loaned them seed potatoes to plant. That

spring Daniel and one of his older sons, probably Isaiah, took an Indian dugout

canoe and navigated down the Willamette River to what is now the west side

business district of Portland. He looked at the possibilities of the pristine

site and said, "If I can't find anything better to do, I can make a living

here." The men cut down some trees, squared the logs, and laid a foundation for

a cabin. But the project was abandoned because it was too far away from other

people. When Daniel and Mary heard in the summer that Henry and Rachel Matheny

had settled in the Eola Hills some forty miles upstream, they went to

investigate the area, crossing Chehalem Mountains during a storm.

Exploring near Rachel and Henry's claim, Daniel came across James O'Neil,

who was amenable to selling his squatter's rights to what had been the home and

farm of the Rev. David Leslie of Jason Lee's Methodist Mission, which had

recently been moved upstream to Salem. The 640 acre site on the Willamette

River included Rev. Leslie's large two-story log home, a barn, other

outbuildings, fruit trees, and several cleared acres under cultivation. It lay

twelve miles north of Salem on the Willamette's west bank. The major part of

Lee's mission had been on the east bank, slightly south of the Matheny property.

When the mission had moved, Leslie sold his rights to his home and farm to

O'Neil, who in turn sold them to the Mathenys. O'Neil also sold Matheny a new

ferry boat that he had hired a co-traveler of the Mathenys across the plains,

Lindsay Applegate, to build while the Applegates were wintering (1843-44) in the

main part of the former mission. It had been O'Neil's intention to begin a ferry

at the site, which had long been a fording place of the Indians.

There was a warehouse at the old mission where the few farmers of the area

stored their wheat. To reach the warehouse, farmers on the west side of the

river had to borrow boats to cross the river. Also contributing to the need for

a ferry was the school which had been established in February of 1842 at a

meeting held at what was to later be called Garrison's Landing on the former

mission land. Alanson Beers had donated a room in his house to function as the

school, but would-be students on the west side of the Willamette needed to cross

the river to attend school. Clearly there was a need for a ferry, but it was to

be Daniel and Mary Matheny who established the ferry late in 1844. Lindsay's

son, Jesse A. Applegate, in his memoirs, Recollections of My Boyhood, tells of

the building of the first ferryboat at what would become Wheatland, Oregon:

The absorbing thought of this winter [1843-1844] was keeping up the food supply.

The men were out at work in all kinds of weather, not for money, but for food.

Father [Lindsay Applegate] built a ferry boat for...James O'Neil. He first

caulked the openings between the planks in the bottom of the boat and then

poured in hot pitch. As it was a large boat, he used a bushel or two of

literature he found in the old [Mission] house. Tracts and other pamphlets that

had been left there by the missionaries were forced into the cracks with a

chisel and hammer.

For building the boat, father took his pay in provisions; pork and peas

constituted the greater part of these provisions. The French settlers [of

French Prairie] seem to have grown peas extensively...

The ferry begun by the Mathenys in 1844 was the first capable of

accommodating a wagon and ox team crossing the river. It was the only ferry

upstream from Champoeg seventeen miles away. The Wheatland ferry is still in

operation today, the oldest ferry in the state of Oregon. The modern mechanized

ferryboat is named the Daniel Matheny IV (It is the fourth ferryboat to have

operated at the site in its 152 year history.) Between 1844 and 1847, a great

many immigrant wagons crossed at "Matheny's Ferry." As the immigrants took up

farms, the ferry's use increased. At times, at the height of the wheat-hauling

season, there would be a long line to cross the river to the grain warehouse at

the former mission. There would be a large camp of the wagoners camping

overnight to wait their turn to be ferried. [Willamette Landings, Ghost Towns

of the River, by Howard McKinley Corning, pp. 97-102].

So the Matheny family, after harvesting their crops in the Tualatin Valley,

jubilantly moved into their newly-acquired home and settled in. Henry and

Rachel's land lay only two miles west. The men immediately began building a

cabin for Adam and his wife Sarah Jane and clearing more land for farming. The

women busied themselves making the house a home, planting gardens, and fretting

about how they were going to replace their tattered clothing. The tax list of

1844 shows that the Mathenys already owned 100 horses, 440 cattle, and 10 hogs.

How they came to have the feral hogs was a story related by Charlotte Matheny

Kirkwood in her book. A pregnant sow was found on Grand Island, where her sty

had been deposited in an earlier flood. The hogs, no doubt, had belonged to the

Mission at one time because there was no one else upstream who could have owned

them, unless they had belonged to James O'Neil.

Mary Matheny had begun the trip across the plains with her beloved seed bag

tied to the horn of her saddle. A lover of flowers, when she visited the

abandoned site of the Methodist Mission across the Willamette from her home, she

dug up the bushes and planted them in her own garden. She is credited with

having saved the "Mission Rose" that many historical-minded Oregonians have in

their gardens today, descendants of the bushes Mary saved. (p.241 of Pilgrim and

Pioneer, by John M. Ramsey) This rose today surrounds the Jason Lee monument in

the Mission State Park, planted by the park authorities.

Records of the Manuscript Room, Oregon Historical Society Library, show that

Daniel was a leader in early Oregon life. He was appointed Judge of Election by

the provisional government on July 5, 1845. For a quarter of century Great

Britain and the United States had lived in the nebulous joint-possession of the

Oregon Country. The permanent border between Canada and the United States in

Oregon would be decided sometime in the future. But in 1844, with American

immigrants streaming into Oregon and James Polk campaigning in the election to

obtain the entire Oregon country for the United States, the "Oregon Question"

heated to a boil. The British man-of-war Modeste appeared in the Columbia,

which only tended to stir up the patriotism of the American settlers in Oregon.

Two British agents named Peel and Park traveled the country querying the leaders

of the populace about their loyalties. After having spent the night at Jesse

Applegate's home in Polk County, Peel, Park, and their party arrived at

Matheny's Ferry. As always, the Mathenys were hospitable and invited the party

to their home. When Daniel asked Peel how he liked Oregon, Peel replied "Mr.

Matheny, it is certainly the most beautiful country in its natural state my eyes

have ever beheld." Then, after a slight pause, he continued, " I regret to say

that I am afraid we [the British] are not going to be the owner of it." [History

of Oregon, Vol. I, Charles Henry Carey, Pioneer and Historical Publishing

Company, Portland, p.451.] In 1846 the treaty was signed with Great Britain

dividing the Oregon Country at the 49th Parallel, assuring that the Willamette

Valley would remain American.

Somehow, Mary's father had gotten a letter to the Mathenys telling them that

he and his four sons and their families had sold their farms and were on the

trail in 1846 headed for Oregon. It was in October when Mary's father, Isaiah

Cooper, her four brothers, and their families arrived in the Willamette Valley.

No doubt an extra cabin or two had been built at this time for the expected new

family arrivals. Their sons Isaiah and Daniel B. had been sent to the Tygh

Valley near the gate of the new Barlow Road to await their family and to guide

them to the family's home. By that time, however, the Mathenys were harvesting

good crops and could easily share with the newcomers. The cabins built that year

served as temporary quarters for many a new immigrant family in the years to

come, for the Mathenys were well known for their kindness, which their daughter

Charlotte asserts in her book and is supported by Shannon Applegate in her

family saga, Skookum: Then November came and droves of emigrants arrived again,

trying to find friends or old associates with whom they might lay over until

spring. If they had no ties in Oregon, or people to call upon, they

traveled--desperate and hungry--on foot or in ramshackle wagons, to the very

doors of those reported to be kind-hearted. "Go to the Methodists," they were

directed. "Go to the Mathenys, or the Waldoes, or the Nesmiths," they were

told. "Go to the Applegates." What had at first felt half humiliating soon was

replaced by gratitude for the open door, the warm fire, and the Dutch oven

filled with meat and potatoes. But more than anything, they had appreciated the

good sympathetic company of people who understood what that long journey had

exacted from them--who had plucked miserable children from their mothers' aching

arms and said simply, "There...there...now. Soon things will right themselves

with you and yours."

The Christmas of 1846 was likely a happy one for the Coopers and Mathenys,

living in one place for the first time in more than twenty years. Daniel and

Mary now had four grandchildren with a few more on the way. Adam's wife Sarah

Jane was expecting another. This had to have been a concern not talked about

openly, for Sarah Jane had almost died giving birth to her first child. It was

while all the relatives were living with the Mathenys that winter of 1846-47

that Sarah Jane gave birth to her second child and died as a result. It was the

first family death in Oregon and the first family burial at the cemetery on

Rachel Matheny's land. The first non-family person buried there had been Mrs.

James Cave, but her children and other descendants married into the family

thereafter. For the account of the deaths of both Sarah Jane Matheny and Mrs.

Cave, read Into the Eye of the Setting Sun.

In 1847 Daniel established a town at the ferry site and sold lots. He named

his town Atchison after his Platte County friend, attorney David R. Atchison,

whose star was rising in Midwestern politics. [He was to become

president-pro-tempore of the U.S. Senate, and, some claim, he was technically

president of the United States for one day] An advertisement appeared in the

Oregon Spectator in the spring of 1847:

Sale of Town Lots

A PUBLIC SALE of Lots in the Town of Atchison, in Yamhill County, on the west

bank of the Willamette river at Matheny's Ferry, will take place on the 15th day

of May next, on the premises. Wheat will be taken in payment. Further

particulars as to terms, &c will be made known on the day of sale.

DANIEL MATHENY

April 26, 1847

Due to the location of the grain warehouse at Matheny's town and the town's

importance as a wheat-shipping center, the locals called it Wheatland, and the

name stuck. Wheatland prospered as more and more settlers arrived in Oregon.

Another enterprise undertaken by Daniel was serving as an agent at

"Willamette River Ferry" for the Portland Tannery (perhaps receiving and

shipping hides to the tannery?) [advertisement, 18 Feb-15 April 1847 in the

Oregon Spectator]

In late 1847 a rider arrived at Matheny's Ferry bearing the news that the

Mathenys' benefactor, Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and others at the

Whitman Mission had been killed by Indians of the mission and that women and

children were being held prisoners by the Cayuse Indians. The Mathenys' three

oldest sons, Adam, Isaiah, and Daniel, and son-in-law, Joseph M. Garrison,

joined the army being formed to rescue the captives and punish the guilty

Indians. The captives were ransomed. The army of 500 marched eastward to

punish the guilty Indians. Their task completed in the spring of 1848, and the

guilty Indians imprisoned to be eventually hung, they returned to Wheatland.

One of the rescued captives, Lorinda Bewley, came to the Wheatland area and

taught for a year at the school, a room in the Alanson Beers home next door to

Mary Matheny Garrison's home. Among her students was Charlotte Matheny

Kirkwood. (A rather romanticized book has been written about blonde Lorinda's

captivity and the chief who ardently desired her for his wife: Lorinda Bewley

and the Whitman Massacre, by Myra Sager Helm.)

After the resolution of the Cayuse problem, the territory had just settled

down when a ship brought news of the Calfornia gold discovery. The news stopped

Oregon's development cold. Nearly every able-bodied man and many women

abandoned their farms to get rich quickly. Many never returned and chose to

remain in California, including Peter Burnett, who became California's first

governor. The Mathenys were among the vanguard to reach the California gold.

Jasper, but fourteen years old, was left to run the ferry. Although some of the

family women joined their husbands in the mining camps, Mary chose to remain in

Oregon when her husband and sons headed south. The men left the smokehouse full

of food for the family's needs.

It was probably about December of 1848 that the party left for California.

The group included Daniel Matheny and his three oldest sons, Henry Hewitt

(married to Elizabeth Matheny), Joseph Kirkwood (married to Rachel and Henry

Matheny's daughter Lucy Ann), two brothers named Thorp, Isaiah Cooper, Jr.,

(Mary's brother), and probably some others. Enroute to California, the Matheny

party was attacked by Indians in the Modoc country. Isaiah Cooper, Jr., was

struck with an arrow that penerated completely through his torso. The party

outrode the Indians. [Jasper L. Hewitt memoirs] But later Indians stole some

horses in the night that resulted in a trackdown in which Isaiah Matheny nearly

lost his life in hand-to-hand combat with an Indian near Hangtown (Placerville).

(That story is later in this chapter in Isaiah's biography) When they reached

the South Fork of the American River, we learn from Abraham Garrison's memoirs

that the party was not very successful at first. They looked around the

surrounding area and finally located on a small creek that is a tributary of the

Cosumnes River. (In the early decades it was called Matheney's Creek.) Here

the group was quite successful. A mining camp grew up around what was called

"Matheney's Diggings." This evolved into the present-day town of El Dorado.

[California Gold Camps, pp.210-211]

Unbeknown to the men at the mines, Mary and her youngest children were

having a difficult time in their absence. The smokehouse in which all the

family food was stored burned to the ground. Most of the men in Oregon were

gone to the gold fields. It was a trying time for Mary. She had exacted a

promise from her husband that he would return after finding a modest amount of

gold--she said she didn't need great riches. This promise may well have saved

the lives of her husband and sons, because they were probably back in Oregon

when the "camp fever" killed so many of the family in California in the fall of

1849. We know that they were home by Christmas of 1849 because Charlotte

Kirkwood wrote about the joyousness of that Christmas in her book. Something

was occuring in the Matheny household that necessitated Jasper and Charlotte to

be living with their neighbors, the William Miller family, at the time of the

1850 U.S. Census (schooling?). Also staying with the Millers was Adam

Matheny's motherless son David Layson Matheny, seven years old.

The Matheny children, as did other pioneers in Oregon, married young even

for the standards of the times. Mary Matheny was just shy of her fourteenth

birthday when she married the widowed Joseph M. Garrison, thirty-three, on 16

April 1846. Jasper was barely eighteen when he married sixteen-year-old Mary

Ring, 26 December 1852. Charlotte was fourteen when she married John Kirkwood

on the same day as Jasper's wedding. Isaiah and Daniel were each twenty-three,

average for men of their time. With the money from his gold-diggings in

California, Daniel provided Mary with a beautiful new frame home on the bluff

behind their original log home and their more recent one on the banks of the

river. The California gold rush had brought a flurry of settlement to the west.

Wheatland gathered an imposing group of shops, stores, mills, warehouses, and

hotels. With the coming of the steamboats in the 1850's, commerce took a

noticeable upswing at the river ports. Almost daily, boats stopped at

Wheatland's wharves, bringing freight and new settlers up from Portland and

other downstream ports. At Wheatland cargoes of grain and farm produce for

Portland and the export trade were loaded onto the steamboats. The 1850's were

easier, happier years for the Mathenys.

On January 28, 1853, the legislative assembly of Oregon Territory passed an

act commissioning Daniel Matheny, his son-in-law Joseph M. Garrison, and two

others to view and locate a territorial road from Salem to Dayton, crossing the

Willamette at Wheatland. [Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 6, p.368] [This is

now Wallace Road north of Wheatland and Wheatland Road between Salem and the

ferry.]

As always, their prosperity made the Mathenys redouble their efforts to help

the troubled new arrivals. On pages 86-87 of Skookum, Miss Applegate says

The emigrants of '47 brought sickness with them--terrible sickness. Not only

did they carry measles of the most virulent variety to Whitman's mission and the

surrounding country where the Indians were dying in untold numbers, but it was

said that they had brought something even more dreadful to Oregon. Some people

called it "cholera." Others referred to it as the "deadly flux."...

[Referring to the Applegate women] Each time Melinda, Betsy, and Cynthia

touched those children or emptied the dented basins or aired the pee-soaked

bedding, they had said to themselves, "Never mind,"--even though the very

thought made them quake. "Never mind," they'd said again and again. "Never

mind about the cholery."

And so it undoubtedly was with the Matheny women. In 1856 an outbreak of

cholera spread through the Wheatland area. It probably took the lives of Mary's

two sisters-in-law, Mary Ann Crozier Cooper, wife of Bill Cooper and Minerva

Jane McClintock Cooper Staggs, the remarried widow of Mary's brother John. The

Pacific Christian Advocate, in its October 6, 1856 issue, announced the toll on

the Matheny family:

Died-Mary, wife of Daniel Matheny of Yamhill County on the 29th ult. of flux

after an illness of three weeks, aged fifty-six years. Thirty-six years ago,

Sister Matheny experienced religion in Edgar County, Illinois (sic), and joined

the M.E.Church. She leaves a husband and seven children to mourn their

irreparable loss.

Henry Leuder, second and only surviving son of Jasper and Mary Matheny of

Yamhill County on the 15th ult. of flux, aged 1 year and 10 months.

Mary Christiana, daughter of John and Charlotte Kirkwood of Yamhill County

on the 13th ult. of flux, aged 8 1/2 months.

Mary and her two grandchildren were buried at the cemetery on her sister

Rachel's land at what is now Hopewell, Oregon. The deaths of two more

grandchildren that year were probably due to the cholera: Dwight Herbert, the

son of Mary and Daniel's son Daniel B. Matheny, who was born 15, August 1856,

died 4 October 1856, and Wilson H Matheny, Adam's son born 3 April 1853, died 26

August 1856. White marble headstones mark the graves of Mary, Daniel and

Rachel, who lie side by side. The graves of Daniel and Mary are enclosed by a

wrought-iron fence. A row of stones to the left of their graves probably mark

the graves of the babies.

On September 15, 1856 Daniel took advantage of a recently-passed bounty land

law which made him eligible for bounty land; he was granted 160 acres for his

Black Hawk War service. [1929 letter to Lenore Rogers from the Commissioner of

the General Land Office] The land was probably located far from the Mathenys'

home and was probably sold.

The following month the Pacific Christian Advocate, then published at Salem,

in its October 13, 1856 issue had this to say:

APPLES--We have lately received two monstrous specimens of apples. One from the

orchard of Mr. John Odell of Yamhill County which measured 14 1/2 inches in

circumference and weighs 20 ounces. The other was from the orchard of Daniel

Matheny of the same county. It is a Fall Pippin 15 3/4 inches in circumference

and weighs 28 ounces.

Soon the lonely Daniel moved up the road to the home of his daughter and

son-in-law, Elizabeth and Henry Hewitt and there spent his last years. But they

were not to be peaceful years. The challenge to the nation that the Civil War

brought stirred Oregonians to heated passions. The homes near the Hewitt farm

declared themselves a patriotic name, Unionvale. Union men organized throughout

the state to make their message clear to secessionists such as Senator (General)

Joseph Lane. The Oregon Statesman, in its July 8, 1861 issue carried an account

of Union activity at Wheatland:

UNION MEETING AT WHEATLAND

On Saturday, June 29th, the people of Wheatland and vicinity assembled for

the purpose of a flag raising and barbeque in the beautiful grove near the

ferry.

The people gathered in from every direction; by 12 o'clock some four hundred

persons having assembled, the meeting was called to order. A.A.Skinner was

chosen President; D. Matheny, Sr., D.C.Daugherty and S.Buell, Vice Presidents;

and A. Sieber, Secretary. A beautiful national flag was then presented in

behalf of the ladies of the vicinity by G. L. Woods, Esq., accompanied by a

thrilling and eloquent speech, to which the President replied, pledging the

gallantry and patriotism of the meeting to defend from dishonor that emblem of

our national sovereignty whenever and wherever imperiled. The procession was

then formed by S.M.Gilmore, marshall of the day, and marched to the flag staff.

when the "Stars and Stripes" were raised admidst the firing of a national salute

and the enthusiastic shouts of the people by Fathers Farnsworth and Cave,

probably the two oldest patriots on the Pacific coast, and who, as they stood

there, thrilled the multitude by the relation of the perils and dangers they had

encountered in the defence of that flag.

The procession then returned to the grove where an ample dinner had been

prepared, to which all did justice. After dinner, the meeting was addressed by

G.L. Woods, J.R. McBride, J.A.Waymire, J.M.Garrison and A.A.Skinner, all

declaring their unswerving attachment to our glorious and indivisible Union.

The proceedings of the day were enlivened throughout by cheering strains of

music from the Holddridge and Canby bands, to whom the thanks of the meeting

were tendered.

On motion, the meeting adjourned, with the request that the proceedings be

published in the Oregon Statesman.

As the founder of Wheatland, he enjoyed great respect among his peers. But

Daniel lived to see this great fete of his destroyed. The worst flood in the

history of the Willamette Valley on December 1, 1861 wiped out the low-lying

part of the town, including the grain warehouse with 7,000 bushels of wheat. It

also swept away the remaining buildings of Jason Lee's first Methodist Mission

and the entire towns of Champoeg and Linn City. This occurred just as the

nation was beginning its fratricidal civil war. His sons were bitterly split in

their loyalties; Isaiah, having married into the Southern family of Solomon

Allen, took a pro-Confederate stance. His brothers were adamantly pro-Union.

It must have seemed like dark times for the aging Daniel. Wheatland never again

resumed its former size. The flood also destroyed the homes and property of his

daughter Mary Garrison and son Jasper. With improved roads and the advent of the

railroads, river traffic declined in importance. Today only the ferry and a few

houses remain at Wheatland. An historical marker placed there by the family in

1959 sits inside the cyclone fence of one of the homes by the road.

In 1868 Daniel, who lived with the family of his daughter and son-in-law,

Elizabeth and Henry Hewitt, made what was probably his last epic journey. We

learn from Jasper Hewitt's memoirs that Daniel accompanied the Hewitts on a

journey to California, where he visited the families of his son Daniel in the

Fall River Valley and of his son Isaiah in San Jose. Daniel drove "a large

covered wagonloaded with our camping outfit and provisions and such like, this

driven by four horses." But after visiting first Daniel Jr. and then Isaiah for

a few months, Daniel, who was ailing, left for Oregon a few weeks ahead of the

Hewitt family, accompanied only by his able nineteen year old grandson, Adam

Hewitt. A smallpox epidemic in full force when Daniel and Adam passed through

Southern Oregon, and they were met with hostility by anyone they approached.

The seventy-eight year old Daniel died on February 1, 1872, and was buried

at Hopewell next to his wife Mary, whom he had survived by fifteen years. The

Pacific Christian Advocate listed Daniel's obituary:

DANIEL MATHENY was born in Virginia, Dec. 11, 1793, and died of congestive

chills February 1st, 1872, at the age of 78 years, 1 month and 20 days.

When quite young, he moved from his native State to Kentucky, thence to

Indiana, where he was married December 19th, 1819. In Edgar county, Illinois,

in 1825, he sought and found Christ a precious Savior (sic), and united with the

M.E. [Methodist Episcopal] Church. In 1843, he immigrated to Oregon and in 1844

settled at the place now known as Wheatland. The ferry over the river at this

place has long been known as Matheny's ferry. Here September 29th, 1856, his

wife was called to her long home. Most of the time since he has found and

enjoyed a pleasant home at his daughter's, Mrs. Hewett, near Wheatland, at which

place he died.

When quite young he enlisted, and served three months in the War of 1812,

receiving his discharge after the victory at New Orleans. He enlisted again in

1832, under General Atkinson, in what is known in history as the Black Hawk War.

His company elected him First Lieutenant, but owing to the general

dissatisfaction against the Captain he was compelled to serve throughout the

campaign as Captain. In 1839 he again enlisted, and was elected Captain. This

time he was engaged in the war of the Far West, or better known as the Mormon

War.

In his journey to Oregon in 1843, after reaching Green river, they were left

without a pilot or road. This made it necessary that some of the company should

go in advance of the train to explore and search out the best route. Col.

Nesmith, Captain Lenox,___ Kizer, and himself took upon themselves this very

dangerous and responsible work.

His wagon, or team, driven by his son-in-law, Henry Hewett, was the first one

ever driven down the Blue mountains into the Umatilla valley, and the second

immigrant wagon driven to the Dalles.

Nine days before his decease, when as well as usual, he talked to the writer

of his future home hopefully and cheerfully, and expressed much interest in the

religious welfare of others. He was never known to complain. The day before

his death he prayed, "Come quickly, Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus."

A few hours before he died he asked to be delivered from the severe pains

that racked him from which moment all pain left him. At various times he

repeated passages of scripture and hymns that he had learned when young and

treasured long years as a solace for old age. Among his last words he repeated,

"Come thou Fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace.

Streams of mercy never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise."

He has gone in the 79th year of his natural, and the 47th year of his spiritual

life, ripe in age and ripe in grace. Seven children and a large number of

grandchildren and friends survive him to battle with life and imitate his

virtues. May God bless them all, and sanctify this to their good.

T.A.Wood

After their father's death the Matheny children scattered as their energies

took them to far-off places. All four sons are buried far from their first home

in Oregon. All three daughters are buried at Hopewell Cemetery, where their

parents lie.

OLD SETTLERS’ STORIES

Adam Matheny’s Experiences in the War Following the Whitman Massacre.

____________

The Expedition From The Willamette Led by Gilliam, the Fighting Parson.

____________

Two Hot Battles With the Red Murderers.

Sad Scene at the Desolated Mission

____________

I was born in the state of Indiana, in 1820, and emigrated to Missouri in 1835, remaining there until the spring of 1843. On the third day of March [error-it was May 6; Adam was married May 3] that year, I started with the emigrants to Oregon. I am now a resident of Tacoma, the City of Destiny. I came to the Willamette direct from old Missouri, driving three yoke of oxen and a wagon. Peter H. Burnett was the captain of our party. We had the road to make, which was no small task. For many miles the tall wild sage brush was to be mashed down without teams and there were other obstructions to our progress to be removed. It took six months to make the trip across the plains. The Indians were usually very friendly. We all enjoyed good health and had a jolly good time.

When we got to The Dalles, on the Columbia, or near the foot of the Cascades, we found there the end of wagon road. Here we halted, unyoked our jaded teams, and here started to the great Willamette Valley by other means of travel. Now, for the first time, we scattered like the people from the tower of Babel when their language was confounded. Some us went down the Columbia river on large rafts of dry logs, taking families and wagons, household goods, etc. The rest of the party went with the stock over the mountain by an Indian trail, round the North side of Mount Hood near the border of eternal snow. In even scale the battle hung, no bad luck attending, and in a few days we all joined together again at the appointed place on the Willamette, where Oregon City now stands, meeting our wives and children all well and happy. It really would make one laugh now to hear the hurried questions that were then so eagerly asked: “Is father and mother here?” “Is my wife here?” “ Is my sister’s little boy here?” and all answered in the affirmative.

It really seemed strange to see the eyes of so many filled with tears and their cheeks aglow with joy. One old bachelor, standing away back in the crowd, grew discontented and sang out, with a loud, coarse voice: “Is nobody sick- no property lost on the way down the river?” Then he energetically exclaimed: “Thanks be to the Eternal King of Heaven.” Then the amens and thank God went around lively for a little bit among the old people.

Here we rested ourselves and teams on the verdant banks of the Willamette, where we found beautiful specimens of oak timber with their brown arms spreading out and forming a lovely shade, a grateful contrast to the somber pines, that none of us were accustom to.

In two or three days a lovely and exciting scene occurred. No quaint poet can portray or pen describe the alacrity and joy with which the emigrants scattered. They went all directions. Now only think for a moment. Spread out before them lay a virgin world inviting their approach. Town sites, locations for mills on the streams, beautiful valleys, as rich and beautiful as God ever let the sun rise on, and all could be had just for the taking. All the people seemed to get pleasantly and happily located, commenced their various vocations, some farming, some erecting sawmills, some locating sites, others preparing to go at various trades. All professions and trades were energetically represented. Peace and harmony prevailed throughout the forlorn but happy colony for four or five years, and all was pleasant as one could wish. But suddenly there came a day when a courier came dashing into the valley, bringing,

A tale of War, a tale of woe,

A tale of passion dark o’erflow,

A tale of dark and bloody hue’

Alas, alas, the tale is true.

Whitman, the famous pioneer and missionary, and his devoted wife, with quite a number of emigrants who had stopped at his mission on the Umatilla, with the intention of remaining through the winter and resting their animals, so as to be ready for an early start for the west again in the spring, had been murdered, or what was worse, taken prisoner. All the men and half-grown boys had been killed, leaving the women and children defenseless. The chiefs and their sons had taken the girls and young-like women for wives and the older women and children for slaves, and put everybody else to a cruel death.

All this had occurred at or about where Walla Walla now stands, near the foot of the Blue mountains, which was 400 miles from the Willamette. We were only a weak little colony but poorly prepared for defense, and still less prepared for aggressive war. A long, toilsome campaign lay before us; the season was late; snow was beginning to fly; and there was no rich government behind us to provide arms for the battle, means of subsistence or the necessaries of campaign life. Every man began to ask anxiously of the other what should, or could, be done under the circumstances. We all agreed that something must be done, and that promptly, but just how to do it none of us, just for the moment, seemed to know. But we found among us an old Baptist preacher a veritable Gideon. When he was asked what we could do to recover the poor women and children, he made known to us that he was already somewhat acquainted with Indian warfare, as he had once been a colonel in a regiment when he was a good many years younger than he was then, and had done service in the Seminole war in Florida. We did not then know or suspect how great a captain he was, nor what service he would render us and the new state or how long his name would be remembered. He said if we would stand by him he would have those women and orphan children safe in our valley within six weeks, or he would make the last mother’s son of the Cayuses bite dust. To a man we said we would stand by him, and the organization began at once.

Our place of rendezvous was where Portland now stands. We soon got our guns and ponies and put in an appearance at the camp. In a few days the old general had organized a nice little army of 200 or 300 resolute men, and we were almost ready to move, when far down the river some large boats came in view; full of poor, ragged women and half-starved and badly frightened children. Our hearts swelled big with joy when we learned that they were the poor unfortunates from the Umatilla, who had regained their liberty through the magnanimity of the Hudson Bay company’s agents at Wallula, on the Columbia. They had been bought of the Indians for 400 pairs of blankets and some other things which had been used to excite their cupidity. The company put them in a bateaux and started them down the river for the Willamette Valley, accompanied by a few natives of the Sandwich islands, whose skill as boatmen has never been excelled. They had been ordered not to eat, sleep nor stop for rest until they were safe within the Willamette. It was reported the next morning after the prisoners had been ransomed that the Indians had returned and demanded the prisoners back, but the commandant at the fort told them they had been paid their price and should not grumble: that the people had gone to the Willamette. They became greatly enraged and said they would go to Willamette, kill the men, destroy the country and take the women and children for slaves and wives. When this news came to our ears we sent up many cheers and gave thanks to God for his kindness in liberating the poor unfortunate women and children who were now with us.

Our old Baptist warrior, whose name I have not mentioned, but who was the famous Colonel Gilliam, made a little address to his troops. “Boys,” said he,

“the Indians are coming down to kill us, they say. Now we will meet them more than half way and introduce them to Nick Finnigan or Beelzebub if you say so.” We said so with enthusiasm, and the next morning at dawn we started on our toilsome trip up the Columbia. We encountered both rain and snow, and the march was not only toilsome but extremely disagreeable. When crossing the high mountain spurs, we met blinding sheets of snow, and descending to lower lands near the river, we were drenched by torrents of chilly rain.

The first night we camped on the banks of the Columbia, above Vancouver, on a lovely prairie. There a droll incident occurred, which I venture to relate. Our camp was made in a grove of large oak trees, under which our tents were stretched. Now between the general’s tent and my own there stood a large leaning oak, which was partly hollow and very dry, and as the incline was away from the tents, the boys set it on fire, in order to have a good warm beside it, and this was really enjoyable under the circumstances. It soon grew dark; we established our guards; and, after drying ourselves as well as could, we rolled ourselves in our blankets and soon forgot the tree, the fire, the Indians and everything else, for this was then end of our first day’s march and we were all very tired. Most of the boys slept late in the morning, but I have always been an early riser, and the old general had too much on his mind to sleep the next morning. As we were both up early he got his ax, and I followed suit, and we commenced to chop down what was left of the old leaning tree. The boys were all asleep and the chopping failed to awaken them. I suppose none of them remembered which way the tree leaned, so when we yelled out to the boys to look out for it, and then down it came with a tremendous crash. One of my bothers and five or six other big tall men were in one of the tents nearest the tree; and, when we gave the alarm, they sprang to their feet more than half asleep and scampered in every direction, tearing up the tent pegs and entangling themselves, in a most ludicrous way in the tent cloth and ropes, in spite of which they all started to run down the hill with might and main, screaming as they went, taking the tent a good part of the way in their mad rush. This aroused the whole camp, and their plight caused a general laugh, at their expense.

The fallen tree provided plenty of dry wood, and we soon had a rousing fires with the aid of which we soon got breakfast, after which we saddled our horses and trudged along our weary way up the Columbia. We swam the river on the way up, some of us going over by the aid of canoes, and at the end of three or four days we reached The Dalles, all very glad to get into dryer climate. We found there a few boys and men that the Indians were holding cooped up in an old mission house where the missionaries Perkins and Brewer had been employed as Christian teachers among the “dear Indians.” but who had now been compelled to fly for their lives to the city of refuge. It was a joy to us to see these poor prisoners emerge from the wreck of their former station- the old mission house. Several of them had been wounded. One of them had been shot through the heel, but he was so glad to see us come marching up in martial style that he forgot his crutch and never once thought to limp. He joyfully exclaimed, though the tears were standing in his black eyes, “Do you see them Indians yonder, on the hill?” pointing to a high ridge about a mile away. Looking in the direction indicated, we saw Indians plain enough. There was a large band of them in full view. “Now boys,” said he, “we will give them fits,” and he gave a loud yell of the war whoop order, loud enough to make one’s hair fairly raise.

“ Never mind, boys,” said Colonel Gilliam, “ dismount and graze your horses and take a good rest. We will feel their heads by 10 o’clock tomorrow, if they are only brave enough to stand our music.”

They fled toward the mountains and we gave pursuit. The direction they took was toward the head of the Deschutes river, and we knew their plan was to toll us into some deep gorge or canon where they could wait in ambush and take us at a disadvantage on ground of their own choosing, and we followed cautiously. They crossed the Deschutes, and we went up just such a canon as we expected they would seek, quite narrow with bluffs, perhaps 4000 or 5000 feet high, and toward the upper end of it on very high ground they took their stand. Raising a war hoop that fairly jarred the earth, they fired a volley right down into our ranks, after which their chief yelled: “Come up here General Gilliam, damn you, we want to kill you.” The old general refused to accept the invitation but replied: “ You stay up there fifteen minutes, you black scoundrel, if you dare.” Then we counted off by sevens, and every seventh man was detailed to stay with the horses, and the rest of us formed a line, the general gave the word and we started up the hill. The hilltop turned spotted with the smoke from Indian’s guns and the bullets came down over our heads, raising a cloud of dust as they buried themselves in the ground below us. We soon came to where there were three draws, or ravines, crossing the ridge, and we sent a detachment up each of these while we kept the Indians watching those directly in front of them until our flankers got well around them. Then as the flankers got behind them we felt that we had them surrounded, but they stood their ground and fought us about an hour, when they fled, giving up their country to the conquerors, and we immediately prepared to enter it.

We followed them about ten miles and burnt their town and lodges. They were full of fat salmon, which they had prepared for their winter’s food, but which made splendid fuel for fierce flames, which soon fairly illuminated the sky as the work of destruction went on. After destroying the village, we turned back to the battle field to pay our respects to the Indians who still remained there, and to crimp their long straight hair. Then, mounting our horses, again we struck across the country in the direction of Walla Walla, or where Walla Walla now is; and then we met the main body of warriors near the Well Springs on the Umatilla trail at a place called Battle Hollow, which is a broad, dry ravine.

We first saw the Indians away in front of us like a cloud on the prairie. As we came up, they seemed to part in front of us on the trail; and, as we traveled on they closed in behind us; and after we had gone a mile or two, we could turn our eyes in no direction but we could see Indians. So the general called a halt, formed a hollow square, and, with our baggage for defense, formed a small, secure place for our scanty stock of provisions and the surgeon. The Indians all the time kept closing in on us as their circle got smaller we formed a still smaller square with in it, hitching our horses in the middle of it, prepared for battle. Finally they raised their war hoop, and then came down on us on a run. Our general faced the situation bravely, and so did his little army. “Now, boys,” said he, “don’t touch a trigger until I give the word,” and we obeyed. They came up to within 80 or 100 yards of us, everyone mounted on a fine black horse, and most of them stripped nearly naked, all frightfully painted, and yelling like so many demons. When the general spoke it was with a voice easily heard above the yells of our assailants. “Now, boys, give them a shot,” said he, and immediately there was a cloud of smoke in front of each line. When this smoke lifted a little our boys ran out and snatched a scalp or two from the fallen Indians. The riderless horses were running about in every direction, and, after we got the scalps we wanted, we fell into line again. The Indians gave another yell and came down on us once more, and the same thing was repeated as before. All this was early in the morning, and from that time until the sun went down they fought us at long range.

Just at dusk they left the field and drew off to a ridge where they kindled a fire of sagebrush, remaining around there until about midnight, when they seemed to scatter off toward the Blue mountains. When day began to break, we examined the field for the wounded. Our surgeon dressed the wounds of such Indians as he found alive; and we did the best we could for them, and “made good Indians of the rest.’ We shot a horse for breakfast, and after we had eaten, we took up the line of march toward where Walla Walla now stands, by way of Butter creek and Umatilla, crossing Wild Horse creek near the Blue mountains.

When we got to the mission, we saw a horrible spectacle, which made every man anxious to wreak vengeance on those who were guilty of the crime which had been committed there, the evidences of which were everywhere apparent. The old adobe mission house was a ruin, the walls blackened with fire where the Indians had tried to burn it. In the front yard lay the skull of Dr. Whitman, bearing the mark of Tom Sockeye’s hatchet. Bits of the long yellow hair of Mrs. Whitman were strewn profusely about the front yard, having been lapped by the wind around every little sprig, and looking like thousands of spiders’ webs all about the yard. J. Matheny gathered and straightened out quite a lock of these golden strands, platted it and fastened it in the foretop of his war horse, and swore, as James Fitzjames, eternal, vengeance against the redskins; and many a one did he scalp afterwards. He once said laughingly, that he really did believe that the color of that hair was improved every time he took the scalp of an Indian. [transcription error; should say “I” for IsaiahMatheny]

About 200 yards from the mission we could plainly see where the Indians had piled up the dead bodies in a heap and had thrown a few shovels of dirt over them leaving their bodies an easy prey to the wild beasts, and there were many other evidences of the hideous work the murderous rascals had done.

After resting our horses a few days and scouring the country in every direction by our scouting parties, hunting for Indians , wild horses, cattle for beef- for some had strayed away in the mountains, which the Indians had been unable to find after the massacre, we left our sick and wounded at a little fort we had made out of the old mission, and started on a new campaign. Word had come through the friendly Indians that the savages were swimming their horses across Snake river, at the mouth of Too canon, preparing for a trip to the buffalo country, so we started for that point at a gallop. On arriving there we found an immense horde of Indians, seemingly an assembly of many tribes. They were swimming their horses across the river.

We had in our party a German soldier. Now everybody knows that a German who can speak only a few words of English easily gets insulted if you dispute his word on any matter of fact. When he knows he is right, the only way to stop him is to kill him. This German addressed the general thus: “General Gilliam, there is the very Indians we are hunting; there is the murderers.” The general replied: “Never mind, Paul, I will attend to them;” but Paul was not satisfied with this and sung out at the top of his voice, “By Got, I gits one!” then raising his gun, which carried an ounce ball, he shot a large fleshy Indian who was in a canoe. The bullet struck him under the arm and the old fellow sprang to his feet, gave an awful leap into the air, and blood spouted out both sides of his body, forming as pretty a rainbow as a Christian need want to look at. When he struck the water, he sunk immediately, much to our gratification, because he had only got his just dues.

Just at this moment, and off on the high bluffs and surrounding hills, thousands of guns roared, shaking the earth like a clap of sharpest thunder. Then the battle opened with vim. Here we were, only 150 strong, and an assembly of tribes numbering thousands; and they were upon us. Just at the right moment our general ordered our men to surround a large herd of perhaps 1000 horses that were grazing on the river bottoms, and the order was promptly obeyed. The horses started up the creek called Too canon toward the Umatilla river. The Indians followed and the running fight thus began was kept up for four days and nights with only very slight intermission. By the fourth day, toward evening, we had killed so many of them that their women had commenced their funeral songs all around us on the hill, and that called the warriors from the field. So we traveled on up to Mill creek, put out guards, turned the horses on the range and lay on our guns all night according to orders, and I think all hands went to sleep and slept soundly. Four inches of snow fell during the night. It was in the month of March. Next day was lovely, and we traveled on past the present site of Walla Walla four or five miles, to where Whitman’s old mission house is, and found the boys we had left there well and happy, no casualty having occurred during our absence. The friendly Indians, upon hearing of our return, flocked to the mission and had an old-time war dance.

There we rested ourselves and horses two or three weeks, then taking up the line of march across Snake river and the Red Wolf’s land, thence up the river to Spaulding’s mission on the Clearwater. From there a party of thirty men were ordered to strike across the headlands of the Palouse, across the Spokane, and escort Walker and Ells, missionaries among the Spokanes, to the city of refuge. It was with reluctance that they left their Christian Indian friends and the mission, for they had nobly defended their beloved white teachers.

When we all arrived at Walla Walla mission, Colonel Gilliam started to the Willamette valley. What the business was that took him away so hastily, nobody ever knew. On the way home near Wilson’s creek, in pulling a rope out of the end gate of the wagon, a loaded gun was exploded by the rope catching in some way in the hammer, and the wiping stick, which happened to be in the barrel of the gun, entered his head directly between the eyes. The bullet went through his skull, but the stick curled up and broke off. The brave warrior fell dead in his tracks, exclaiming only, “My God!” as he put his hands to his head. His body was bore reverently on down to the Willamette valley, and delivered to his family.

The rest of the army soon returned, and we were all glad to see our friends and homes again. The seeding time was at hand, and we hastily prepared for the harvest and then for California gold mines, to which many of us were attracted by the excitement there.

Adam Matheny’s Narrative

As historian of the Hewitt-Matheny-Cooper Family Association, I made a trip to Tacoma, Washington, in the summer of 1999. While at the Tacoma Public Library, in its excellent genealogical section, I found an index card with the name Matheny, Adam. The card referred me to the Tacoma, Washington’s newspaper, The Daily Ledger for Wednesday, April 6, 1892. In 1892 the Tacoma Ledger was giving away free train rides to pioneers who would submit their recollections for publication. An ad to this effect was on the page opposite Adam’s narrative. This would appear to be the motivation for his writing. Adam no doubt received a free train ride for his efforts. We are thankful to the Ledger for offering such a prize, for we would have nothing written by Adam otherwise.

Several members of our family were with Adam in the small army under Colonel Gilliam, including his brothers Daniel B. and Isaiah C. Matheny, Aaron and Andrew Layson, Joseph Garrison and William Athey. We have tidbits of Isaiah’s memories from news articles, but nothing so complete as the following narrative of Adam’s.

Adam died in 1895 at the age of seventy-five in a settlement along the Queets River in Western Washington. For more information about Adam, read the memoirs of his sister Charlotte Matheny Kirkwood, Into the Eye of the Setting Sun.

Don Rivara