HMC Family Association

Henry Younger Matheny (1800-1849) was the son of Isaiah Matheny and Rachel Younger. [His brother, Daniel Matheny, married Henry’s wife, Rachel’s, sister, Mary Cooper.] Henry and Rachel Matheny(1803 – ) married in 1822 and had a DLC in Hopewell.
“In the spring of 1844, Rachel and Henry settled at what is now Hopewell, Yamhill County, Oregon, against the Eola Hills. When the first death occurred in the area, because their claim lay on high ground, Rachel and Henry donated a portion of their land as the local cemetery,…” It is the Hopewell Cemetery.
Henry died of camp fever in the California gold fields, along with some other members of the family.
“The 1865 personal property tax list shows that Rachel owned or produced that year 2 tons of hay, 40 bushels of apples, 2 hogs, 7 horses, 16 cattle, 10 bushels of potatoes, 100 pounds of butter, 70 bushels of wheat, and 100 bushels of oats. She had twenty acres under cultivation.”

“In 1876 Rachel sold her farm for $5000 to her three Layson grandchildren.”

“Rachel had been the last of her generation of the family left in the Willamette Valley. Her brothers Enoch and Bill had moved to eastern Washington and her brother Isaiah to the Midwest; the rest were dead. She was buried in the cemetery on her own land, next to Mary and Daniel Matheny. In 1932 a monument honoring Rachel as the donor of the cemetery at Hopewell was erected at the cemetery. Her grandnephew, Dr. Jasper Hewitt, read her biography at the dedication.”

For more FAMILY DONATION LAND CLAIMS, click on the link below.

Aaron and Sarah Jane settled next to her parents in Yamhill County and took up a donation land claim. Together they had three children: Anna E. Layson, born ca.1844, OR, married Wilson Gibson, died 1922, buried Hopewell; James Benjamin Layson (aka Jim Ben), born 1845, Yamhill County, married Sarah C. _____, died 1920, Hopewell, Yamhill County, OR; and Cena Abigale, born October 18,1849, El Dorado County, CA, married Rev. Mark E. Bailey, February 26, 1872, Wheatland, OR, died January 24, 1941, Vancouver, WA. A Julie Jones genealogical note says that one child of Annie Layson Gibson committed suicide.
The 1844 tax list shows that the Laysons had 25 horses and 90 cattle. Sarah Jane died of the camp fever in El Dorado County, CA, and was buried at Sutter’s Mill (Coloma) just after the birth of Cena Abigale.
Circuit Court records show that in January 1868 Joseph Kirkwood won a foreclosure suit by default against A.M. Layson et al; perhaps Joseph had come to Aaron’s rescue in January of 1862 when Williams and Lippincott, apparently an area banking partnership, sued Layson and won the case by default. Whatever the case, it appears that Aaron was not prosperous.
Aaron lived on many years, never remarrying until his children were grown and his mother-in-law had died. The following January 20 of 1878, at the age of about fifty-eight, Aaron married Eliza Jane Athey, a maiden woman also in her fifties, a sister of William Athey, who was married to William S. Cooper’s daughter Charlotte Cooper Cave. In the 1880 Census, Aaron was listed as living in Marion County, Marion Precinct. He died in 1886 and was buried at Hopewell. Jim Ben lived out his life in the Hopewell area.

Married in 1846. [She was 13 and he 33.] She was the daughter of Daniel and Mary Cooper Matheny. His DLC lay on part of the old Jason Lee Mission in Mission Bottom, Marion County, 12 miles north of Salem. Across the Willamette River in Yamhill County was the DLC of her parents, where the Mathenys established the town of what became Wheatland and the Wheatland Ferry.  A wharf constructed on the Willamette River by his land was called Garrison’s Landing.  Mary and Joseph Garrison tried unsuccessfully to sell their DLC in 1861 just before the Great Flood that December that wiped out the towns of Wheatland and Champoeg.  The Garrison’s farm on the bottom land was flooded. The flood came quickly and they retreated to the second  floor of their home, where neighbors made their way to join them for refuge. They were rescued by friends with boats. The house stood until 1993.

To see more FAMILY DONATION LAND CLAIMS click on the link below.