[or-roots] Wheatland, Oregon

[Chris & Bill Strickland]

 From a perhaps less biased source than our two current responders, is 
this website, citing a book titled "Willamette Landings -- Ghost Towns 
for the River", by Howard McKinlay Corning as a source:
   http://www.wheatlandferry.com/oregon/atchison.html

    "A public sale of the 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 of May next (1847) on the
    premises. Wheat will be taken in payment. Further particulars as to
    terms &c, will be made known the day of sale." --Daniel Matheny

This notice first appeared in the advertising columns of the Spectator, 
April 29, 1847, but Atchison is not to be found on any map of Oregon, 
past or present. Lying at a point about twelve miles below Salem, 
Atchison made a quick growth to regional importance. Its local residents 
however, thought Atchison City an unlikely name for a wheat-shipping 
center and took to calling the place Wheatland. Wheatland, although 
still a name on the Oregon map, is gone--its site covered by a peach 
orchard that spreads along the bench-land. Only the ferry landing and 
the road to it remain.

Like many other early Oregon towns, Wheatland was the ambitious 
undertaking of a single individual. Its founder, Daniel Matheny, was 
born in Virginia, December 11, 1793. Following adventurous years in the 
War of 1812, in the Black Hawk War of Illinois, and in a minor fracus of 
1839 referred to as the Mormon War, in which he moved from a lieutanancy 
to a captaincy, Matheny learned of the free land to the west in the 
Oregon Country. It was in the spring of 1843 that he and his brother 
Henry allied themelves with the overland wagon train that became known 
as the "Great Migration." In the journey westward Matheney's sound 
judgement was often depended upon.

Evidently Matheny brought some money with him to Oregon; for in the 
spring of 1844 he purchased the squatter rights to the donation land 
claim of James O'Neal, situated on the west bank of the Willamete River 
at a point about seventeen miles above Champoeg. That was just across 
the river and slightly north of the first Methodist Mission, then 
recently abandoned in favor of Salem. Of greater advantage was the fact 
that the O'Neal claim also lay just southwest of French Prairie, a 
district of growing settlement.

continued at the listed URL,

Bill Strickland


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/or-roots/attachments/20100226/0c24db28/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: pic-wheat_sill_small.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 12051 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/or-roots/attachments/20100226/0c24db28/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: spacer.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 42 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/or-roots/attachments/20100226/0c24db28/attachment-0001.gif>