Jasper Newton Matheny was the brother who sympathized with the South in the Civil War, so he probably did not get along well with family. He was born in 1834 and married into the Allen family in 1852? and moved next to them. He was granted a DLC that same year.
Jasper had a pink vest he obtained when trading for ferry passage. Jasper had run the Wheatland Ferry so he bought the existing Salem ferry and operated it, a wharf, and a warehouse, which he also owned. The flood of 1861 wiped out Jasper’s warehouse, which wiped him out financially. He and a partner had a gold venture in Idaho, not mining, but selling supplies.
He took partners, including James Glover and went to Spokane, which they founded.
Later he went to the mining fields.
After that, he lived in Mexico where he had a coffee plantation near the Guatemalan border. There he contracted malaria and died in San Francisco on his return in 1893. His funeral was in a San Francisco hotel.
When Jasper sold the ferry, he ended up having to foreclose on the buyer. Jasper’s sister, Elizabeth Matheny Hewitt, and her husband, Henry Hewitt, then bought the ferry