Steve Hernandez, Oregon State Parks Ranger 3 Lead Ranger, was invited by Stephanie Craig our HMC archivist, to come to the 2024 Reunion to talk to family members about our history at the Maud Williamson State Recreation Site. The site’s Oregon Parks management has changed units and is now in the Luckiamute Unit, whose focus is on the area along the Willamette River. The State Parks agency was committed to interpretative displays, which connect visitors emotionally to the sites. They were to be looking at every park and taking the opportunity to investigate more history.
In October, several family members met with Mr. Hernandez and had an informative and inspirational discussion over lunch at the Grand Island Store, which had been owned by members of our family in the past. After the meeting, Mr. Hernandez told our HMC historian, Brian Hewitt, that his “stories gave life into the history of people that once were. It’s the human side of history and those stories with universal concepts that make the real connections.” When Barbara Kerr, HMC website coordinator, told him that the family has been looking at the area as “the old neighborhood”, he said, “I love the idea of neighborhood describing how the three families traveled and settled in the region. It would be a good theme for a panel at Maud Williamson.”
Plans were made to gather pictures, information, and more stories to work toward an interpretive display in the park. “I would like to continue a conversation around developing content for an interpretive panel themed around the concept of neighbors and community in early Oregon settler history and connections to the land that the park is situated on. We have a few things in our que already so this maybe something of consideration into the next Biennium (25-27), but I would like to be ready when that time comes. There is an internal process, but it doesn’t mean we couldn’t collaborate sooner on content and media (pictures) if that is something you would like to work on.” “Your input will help shape a message that will be offered to every person that visits Maud Williamson.”
Unfortunately, the funding for the project has been cancelled. But that does not mean the family needs to stop gathering materials for a possible, future revival of the project.
Maud Williamson Park is right in the middle of a pretty important area. Nearby Champoeg is referred to as the Plymouth Rock of the region. However, outside of the stone monument in the Park, there is nothing else honoring it. The house was built in the late 1800s; the back half in the late 1850s. The Government Land Office shows the Matheny Donation Land Claim.
The plan was to have an interpretive panel that brings it up to the next level, but not a visitors center. The panel would speak not only to history buffs, but also connect visitors, no matter where they are from, to universal concepts. It would talk about the Native Americans who were here a thousand years ago and why the settlers came to Oregon and why they settled here. It would include the whole story of the area, including the Chinese labor camp not too far from the Park, and the approximately fifty Black Americans who were brought here by the settlers to work the land, as slaves. When they were freed, they started businesses and farms. When the government wanted to take away their land, the people of the rest of the community said no.
THE NATIONAL REGISTER NOMINATION
A number of years ago, Oregon State Parks started looking at the Maud Williamson House for listing on the National Register of Historic places. A draft National Register nomination was developed. However, it was never completed, nor was it ever submitted for nomination.
Some questions and speculations were:
“If the west portion was constructed in 1849 that would line up with the Matheny men returning from the Californian gold rush that Christmas. I speculate the back portion was constructed by Adam from their success with the Gold rush compared to their earlier cabin being crude and more modest. It was noted that Daniel constructed a newly framed house that same year. Just speculation though.” Steve Hernandez Park Ranger 3.
Did the Matheny’s sell the property to the Williamsons? If the back part of the house was built in 1850s, could you say it may have been Adam Matheny’s house?
The student-written nomination was being revised but was not finished. There were some questions about construction dates for the rear portion of the building, and there was some later physical exploration to try to gain some insights. Any new information gained may not be included in the draft nomination.
In 2013, the following draft National Register nomination had been prepared by University of Oregon graduate students.
(Matheny-Williamson House) at Maud Williamson State Recreation Area in Yamhill county.
Jason Allen 12/2012
Maud Williamson House
Introduction
The Maud Williamson House appears to have been built in two phases. The main (eastern) massing of the building, consisting of two stories, is generally attributed to Charles S. and Ruby T. (Johnson) Williamson, though definitive information linking them to the construction of the house has not been identified. Attribution is based on the perceived construction date of the house (estimated, based on style) to the 1880s or 1890s. Charles Williamson is identified as having “located one mile from Wheatland” upon his arrival in Oregon in 1876 (Gaston 1912:822). The rear (western) massing, consisting of a plank-constructed, single-story structure joined to the rear of the eastern massing, is acknowledged to be older than the eastern massing, though a definitive construction date has not been identified through documentary research. Previous studies have suggested ca. 1870, based on the hall-and-parlor form, a commonly-employed form used by early settlers in the Pacific Northwest (Stock 2004). Exploratory investigations during the summer of 2012 undertaken in anticipation of repairs has suggested that the western massing of the house may have been constructed earlier than ca. 1870, and may represent the occupation of the property by Adam Matheny, who first settled the property in 1844 and lived there with his family from that time until the 1860s.
Adam Matheny
Adam Matheny was the first known settler on this property. Matheny was born December 20, 1820 in Owen County, Indiana, the first child of Daniel and Mary Polly (Cooper) Matheny. In 1825, the family moved to Edgar County, Illinois, where they farmed 68.84 acres. In 1830, Daniel moved the family to Schuyler County, Illinois, registering three land patents totaling about 200 acres. In 1837, the family moved westward again, this time to Platte County, Missouri (Rivara 2001). In 1843, the year of the first major migration across the Oregon Trail, Adam Matheny accompanied his family to Oregon, in the process eloping with sixteen-year-old Sarah Jane Layson. Upon reaching The Dalles, the family split as Adam and Aaron Layson (cousin of Sarah Jane) accompanied the family’s possessions as they rafted down the Columbia to Fort Vancouver while the rest of the family and their livestock crossed over the Cascades near Mount Hood, likely following a trail first cut over Lolo Pass in 1838 by Daniel Lee (the Barlow Road would open the following year in 1845 as a less difficult overland alternative to the Lolo Pass route) (Rivara n.d.). The family reunited at Fort Vancouver, and immediately set about looking for land to settle.
In late 1843 or early 1844, the Matheny’s purchased a cabin in the Tualatin Plains, near present-day Hillsboro. In the early spring 1844, they planted crops for that year, apparently with a mind to live there only that year, as Daniel and one of his sons began looking for open land to settle. One of the locations they considered was later to become the location of Portland. They cleared some land on the west side of the Willamette River, squared logs and laid a cabin foundation, intending to settle this location if a better one could not be found. That summer, they received word that Daniel’s brother, Henry Matheny, had settled in the Eola Hills area northwest of present-day Salem, Oregon. Upon joining them there, Daniel began looking for land nearby to settle, and arrived upon the farm originally developed by the Rev. David Leslie, who had been with the Methodist Mission (located across the Willamette River) founded by Jason Lee, and which had since relocation of the Mission to present-day Salem been occupied by James O’Neil (variously spelled O’Neal). Daniel purchased the property, which consisted of 640 acres, and included a two-story log home, barn, a small fruit orchard, some cultivated fields, and a ferry boat that O’Neil had intended to make a business of operating (Rivara, n.d.). Daniel Matheny would operate this ferry for many years, and is currently memorialized through the name of the present ferry, Daniel Matheny III.
Adam Matheny’s family quickly followed and established their claim to the west of Daniel’s, and other members of the family, as well as in-laws, all established or purchased claims nearby. With the assistance of other members of the family, Adam built a cabin on his claim.1 In January 1847, Sarah Jane Matheny died while giving birth to their second child, who was named Sarah Jane in her memory. Later that year, Daniel platted and offered for sale town lots in a new community near the ferry, called Atchison City, and later re-named Wheatland. Also that year, Adam and several of his brothers accompanied Col. Cornelius Gilliam to retaliate against the Cayuse following the murders of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman (with whom the Matheny’s were acquainted), among others, at the Wai’ilatpu Mission (Rivara 2004). Late the following year, Adam, his father, and his brothers, like so many others in Oregon at the time, received word of the gold discoveries in California, and they immediately departed to try their luck. By Christmas 1849, they had returned having done well enough for Daniel to build a new frame house, and for the other brothers to make significant purchases of land in the coming years.
In 1851, Adam married Harriet Hamilton (born August 10, in Indiana), who had come across the Oregon Trail with her parents in 1844. Together, they had eleven children. In 1856, their third child, a 16-month old boy named Wilson H. Matheny, died during an outbreak of cholera that also took the lives of Adam’s mother, two aunts, and several nieces and nephews. That year, Adam began to sell portions of their claim, followed by other portions in 1857 and 1858. In 1860, Adam and his family moved to Polk County, just opposite Salem on the west bank of the Willamette River. Here, Adam’s daughter Caroline drowned in the Willamette River while playing with her older sister Sarah Jane. During the 1860s, Adam moved his family to western Benton County (now in Lincoln County), though retaining the last portion of his claim near Wheatland until 1871, when the last of it was sold (Rivara 2001). In 1880, Adam and his family are enumerated in Wheatland Village, suggesting he had occupied a house within Wheatland town, though this is unconfirmed (Census 1880). He is also enumerated in Whitman County, Washington, where he moved his family, which Rivara has taken as suggesting that this is the moment when the Matheny’s moved, having been enumerated in Oregon, then again in Washington following their relocation (Rivara 2001).
Charles S. Williamson
Charles S. Williamson was born in Huntingtonshire, England on August 23, 1838 to parents William and Mary (Chapman) Williamson. In 1852, he immigrated to the United States, first attending school and working near Rochester, New York before relocating to Johnson County, Kansas in 1861. During the Civil War, he served in the Kansas Cavalry for three years, primarily on the plains. Following his service, he returned to Johnson County. In 1867 he married Ruby (Johnson) Williamson, and subsequently raised four children, including the youngest, Maud Williamson, who was born in 1873. In 1876 the family relocated to Wheatland, Oregon. There he operated a small pharmacy, and served as postmaster for twelve years (Gaston 1912:822). He retired in 1887 and spent the remainder of his life farming at the 160-acre farmstead that included Maud Williamson State Park, making “many improvements, erecting buildings and cultivating the soil (Gaston 1912:822).
Charles Williamson died in 19XX and the property fell to his daughter Maud, who was a school teacher by profession, and did not marry. Maud continued to live with her parents throughout her adult life until their deaths, and lived in the house until her own death. On Maud’s death in 1934, the property now comprising Maud Williamson State Park, approximately 20 acres, was willed to the State of Oregon for use as a public park, subject to the life-tenancy allowance for her brother, Albert Williamson. The remainder of the property was left to the Hopewell Cemetery Association. It appears that the intent of Ms. Williamson was for the property to be sold, and the proceeds to be used for the care of the Hopewell Cemetery. Albert never took up residence at the house, instead renting it out until his own death in September 1943, at which point the park was conveyed to the State of Oregon free of any further encumbrance (Devers 1943).
It is unclear at what point, and through whose intermediate ownership the property now including Maud Williamson Park passed from Adam Matheny to Charles Williamson. Rivara indicates that when Matheny began selling off portions, portions were sold to neighbor William Miller in 1856 and 1858, another was sold to Daniel Matheny (Adam’s father) in 1857, and in 1871 the last parcel of the claim was sold again to Miller, though through a default on payments the property was finally disposed of in 1885 when it was sold to James Tadlock (Rivara 2001). The year that Williamson took possession of the Matheny property is variously reported as 1876 (the year he arrived in Oregon), 1880, when he was enumerated in Wheatland, and 1887, when he apparently retired from pharmacy and took to farming (Gaston 1912:822; Ogard 1984). Ogard states that the Adam Matheny DLC was owned and occupied by W.H. West from 1860 to 1887 (though this information is in conflict with other information), and that Williamson purchased the property from West in September 1887. Although not confirmed by in-text citation, the date asserted by Ogard, who includes deed records among given references, may be correct, as the suggestion is that deed research was conducted, though the complete story is likely a combination of these, including the sale of portions of the original DLC to several individuals. Further, detailed research in the deed office is recommended to sort this out.
Physical and Documentary Evidence
The house at Maud Williamson State Park is noted in almost all documentation conducted to have been constructed in at least two phases; based on stylistic attributes and form, the two-story portion to the east (the main massing) is estimated to have been built ca. 1890, suggesting it was constructed during the occupancy of Charles S. Williamson. The western, single-story massing is universally indicated among the inventory records as having been built earlier. The most common estimate of construction is given as ca. 1870, and is based on form and construction type.
Historical documentary references to the home of Adam Matheny all refer to the home as a “cabin.” Although this has definite connotations to the modern reader, often conjuring images of log-constructed buildings, the word refers to a small, simply-constructed shelter often intended to be a temporary dwelling.
General Land Office surveyors conducting the cadastral survey of the Willamette Valley surveyed this area in the early 1850s. Survey of township and section lines occurred in June and December 1852, respectively. Although not represented on the resulting GLO map, the surveyor’s notes refer to the Adam Matheny house, and provide bearings from known points along the survey lines. On October 31, 1853, Adam Matheny’s Donation Land Claim was formally surveyed by the General Land Office. Surveyors again include bearings from known points toward Adam Matheny’s house. Rough re-trace of these bearings, while providing a general location for the house, lacks the precision to provide a precise location for the house, but nonetheless, the lines tend to cross in the vicinity of the southwestern corner of what is now Maud Williamson State Park, in the area of what is currently a parking lot. While there are several sources of error inherent in this exercise, the approximate location of the Adam Matheny house identified by the GLO surveyors is quite close to the present location of the Maud Williamson House, and may represent the Matheny cabin/house in the position it currently occupies, or may suggest that the Matheny cabin/house was moved a short distance (approximately 160 meters), either before or at the time that the main massing of the Maud Williamson House was constructed.
In most cases in the Willamette Valley, the first structure to be built on a newly settled land claim would have been a small log structure, quickly followed by a more carefully built, squared log structure with one or two rooms below, and a sleeping loft above. This was the result of an immediate need for shelter (the first log structure), and the scarcity of milled lumber, especially in outlying areas of the valley (the second log structure). Within a few years, these would be followed by a finished building composed of sawn lumber (Dole 1974:81-86).
In the case of Adam Matheny, it is possible that the need for the first, crude log structure was avoided by virtue of Daniel Matheny’s house having already been built by the time the families arrived, and that while Adam’s house was being built that they cohabitated with Daniel’s family. At this point, Adam Matheny’s family was only three people, and would have required little space. It is also reasonable to suspect that the second and third structures typically built could have been combined into a hybrid type, built small out of necessity to complete it quickly and ease of construction, but built with sawn lumber that would have been available, at the very least, at the Willamette Mission upstream at present-day Salem, where by 1843 two sawmills were operating, capable of producing lumber, shingle, and siding (Walton 1965:75-76). Other early sawmills may have been located even closer.
Box construction during the early period of Oregon settlement is attested by Dole, who states that the building type is among the three earliest types of construction during the settlement period in Oregon (aside from log construction), closely following the establishment of the sawmills upon whose rough-sawn lumber they were dependent. An example is the James Blakely House (demolished 1966), possibly as early as 1846 – his is often cited as the first house in Brownsville, built that year. This house appears to be a good comparative example, as it appears (in the few photos taken by Marion Dean Ross just before its demolition following a fire) to demonstrate similar construction techniques, including the construction of the top plate and the connection of the rafters, and possibly the connection of the wall planks to the sill, nailed to the outside of the sill beam, just as at the Maud Williamson House. Dole notes that “economy recommended [box construction] because the wall requires one-third less material than any other system, and half as many nails” (Dole 1974:98-99).
Further Research
· Newspapers from the 1880s and 1890s to try to find mention of the main massing construction and/or the move of the original house;
· Deed records to nail down the actual chain of ownership of the portion of the property that contains the house;
· U of O archives for more information on the Blakely House (Marion Dean Ross Collection);
· Clear up the question of the chain of ownership on the southwest corner of Maud Williamson State Park – it appears that the original donation did not include this portion of the park.
References
Devers, J.M. 1943 Letter to Edward Holman and Sons, October 19, 1943. On file at Oregon State Parks, Salem.
Dole, Philip 1974 Farmhouses and Barns of the Willamette Valley. Space, Style & Structure, Vol. I.Oregon Historical Society, Portland.
Gaston, Joseph 1912 Centennial History of Oregon, Vol.II. The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago.
Gurley, Lottie LeGett (compiler) 1982 Genealogical Material in Oregon Provisional Land Claims. Genealogical Forum of Portland, Oregon, Inc. Portland, Oregon.
Rivara, Don n.d. Mary “Polly” Cooper Matheny 1800-1856. Electronic document, available at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jtenlen/ORBios/mcmatheny.txt. Accessed July 27, 2012.
2001 Oregon Pioneers – Adam Matheny 1820 Indiana – 1895 Oregon. Electronic document, available at: http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mransom/AdamMatheny.html. Accessed July 24, 2012.
2004 Jasper Matheny – Frontier Sheriff, Businessman, Mexican Planter, and a Founder of Spokane. Electronic document, available at: http://genealogytrails.com/wash/spokane/matheny.htm. Accessed July 27, 2012.
Stock, Jody 2004 Maud Williamson State Recreation Site Residence. Historic Resource Survey Form, on file at Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, Salem.
United States Bureau of the Census (Census) 1880 Tenth Manuscript Census of the United States. Yamhill County, Wheatland Village Precinct. Microfiche on file at Multnomah County Library, Portland, Oregon.
Walton, Elisabeth Brigham
1965 “Mill Place” on the Willamette: A New Mission House for the Methodists in Oregon, 1841-1844. Masters Degree Thesis, University of Delawar