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REUNION 2025! FUN with FAMILY

Saturday, July 26th, 2025

WHEN: The Hewitt-Matheny-Cooper Annual Family Reunion will be on August 3, 2025. It is always on the first Sunday in August.

WHERE

IN PERSON: At Maud Williamson State Recreation Site, 22500 Wallace Rd., NW, Salem, Oregon (also known as the Salem-Dayton Highway, OR-221) between the cities of Salem and Dayton, at the intersection of Oregon Route 221 and Oregon Route 153, near Wheatland.

ONLINE: The virtual event this year will again be on Google Meet. The Virtual Reunion link is: https://meet.google.com/qnn-prff-zuy The link will be available on Facebook HMC Family Group as well as here on the website, HMCFamily.org. For Virtual Reunion support contact Melissa Gomez 503-851-4145 or melclark2@gmail.com PLEASE NOTE: the virtual meeting will be for our business meeting only.

SCHEDULE

Listening to comments and individuals over the years, and wanting to be more relevant to younger generations, starting this year, the HMC Council and other family volunteers are trying to increase the fun ratio in our gatherings. The Council is looking forward to hearing your feedback after this year’s Reunion. We are committed to a short business meeting with no extended presentations. Our goal is to keep time to focus on fun as a family.

Join in as early as 9:00 a.m. for visiting and catching up with your cousins.

The meal will be at 11:00 a.m. We are eating earlier to avoid the heat we have been experiencing in recent years. The new meal time comes with a breakfast/brunch menu. Our Reunion chairs, Scott and Lindsey Fery, will be manning the grill! Pancakes with toppings including some homemade jams and jellies, eggs, breakfast meats, coffee, orange juice, water, lemonade, plates, silverware, cups, and tablecloths will be provided.

Please bring any other drinks or dishes you would like to share. Yes, traditional potluck dishes are welcome along with any other creative brunch ideas.

The business meeting will be at 12:00 noon. Elections this year are for two Council members from the Hewitt branch. You can volunteer or nominate someone during the meeting.

PINATA!

After the business meeting, there will be a pinata for the kids and adults, starting with youngest to oldest, carrying on the tradition started by Arnie [Charlotte Cooper] and Sue Young’s family, but including all the generations this year.

ONGOING ACTIVITIES THROUGHOUT THE DAY

In addition to Uncle Daniel’s Two Hops and a Jump contest run by Brad Kerr each year, we are trying a few new things:

[Henry & Elizabeth Hewitt>James Andrew Hewitt>Sylva Hewitt Kerr>Jean Kerr>Brad Kerr]

DANIEL MATHENY HEWITT TWO-HOPS-AND-A-JUMP CHALLENGE

The Daniel Matheny Hewitt Two-Hops-and-a-Jump Challenge is for all ages. In the seventeen years we have been “stretching our stride”, we have had family from toddlers to 84-years-old participate. The “Challenge” is to see how many family members we can include as participants . The idea is to start with a running start and go as far as you can in two hops on one foot followed by a jump from both feet. There are a number of age categories and plenty of support. You can join in at the picnic or…

for those attending virtually, try it wherever you are and post your results online.

For the family history and details of the event see Daniel Matheny Hewitt Challenge-Two Hops and a Jump in the page listings to the right..

[Henry& Elizabeth Hewitt>Daniel Matheny Hewitt]

ART and CRAFTS TABLE

Paper, pens pencils, and crafts for all ages to share in doodling to graphic storytelling, and making things to take home.

FOR THE YOUNGER COUSINS

Balls and miscellaneous play equipment for younger kids, and their grownup friends, will be available.

CORNHOLE GAME

Tossing bean bags (originally full of corn) into a hole on a board is a game our ancestors played that has become wildly popular again.

FAMILY VOLLEYBALL

If there is enough interest, we may have a family team volleyball game this year or in future years.

GALLERY WALL

We would like to create a “gallery wall” of old family photos, the paintings from Sarah Goller, and family charts/family trees. Anyone with items they want to display for the day, please bring them along. We will see what we can accomplish.

FAMILY ALBUMS

The photo albums full of pictures taken by Olive Johnson and others at the reunions throughout the years have been repaired thanks to a group of volunteers last summer. They are now reunion-ready and will rejoin the family albums where you can look up information on your immediate and distant relations. Remember to update entries for any new members into the family albums. (There will be sticky notes to put in the appropriate spaces.)

[Henry & Elizabeth Hewitt>James Andrew Hewitt>Olive Hewitt Smith>Elsie Warmington>Olive Johnson]

INTO THE EYE OF THE SETTING SUN

It’s back! New copies will be available @$25 each. If you don’t get one at the Reunion, you can order one by mail for $30 by sending a check payable to HMC Family Association to Merrilee Johnson, 3751 NE St. Joseph Rd,. McMinnville, OR 97128.

COUNTRY STORE

Come shop at our Country Store for treasures and things yummy.

Please bring donations for the Country Store. Bring items large or small that may be of interest to family members, including extra produce or canned goods from your garden, plants, services, books, household goods, handcrafts, art, etc.

It’s a good way to find homes for family mementos that no longer have a place in your life, but you want to go to someone who will value them.

CLEAN UP – IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR!

Join in making sure you have all of your things and helping to tidy up the shelter and grounds.

MAILING LISTS If you or another family member you know did not get a postcard announcement this year, please send your email and postal mail addresses to Lindsey at lrlatti2d@aol.com, or text to 503-881-1417. You can also put them on the list at the registration table when you are signing in at the picnic;

or in the sign-in or chat if you are attending online.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE REUNION, contact Merrilee, our HMC president at merrilee.s.johnson@gmail.com or 503-550-9339.

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WE ARE ALL CONNECTED: REUNION 2024

Tuesday, September 24th, 2024

The theme for this year’s Reunion was that we are all connected and we all belong. This was expressed in several different ways.

THE PHOTO BOOTH This year, our president, Merrilee Johnson, introduced the “Photo Booth”.  Pictures were taken of individuals and immediate family holding up empty picture frames, to capture our current members for the family albums. The albums contain pictures and documentation of our family from all the generations.  In them, you can find your ancestors and how you are connected. The albums are kept secure in the Yamhill County Museum and brought out for all to see each year at the Reunion. Family members can view them at the museum during the year. See the images in the “Reunion 2024 Photo Booth” posting following.

HMC FAMILY COUNCIL We all belong to the Hewitt-Matheny-Cooper Family Association.  Its organization and projects are carried out with our collaboration.  The HMC council is made up of six members.  At every Reunion, two members of one of the three family branches, Hewitts, Mathenys, and Coopers, are elected. This was a Matheny year.  Al Ernst was re-elected, and George Bailey was elected to be the newest council member. George is a descendant of Henry and Rachel Matheny. Henry was Daniel Matheny’s brother.

PROGRAM – TRAVELING THE TRAIL Today, we are connected to family around the country and the world. From attending the Reunion online to traveling to the Park in person, we belong. George Bailey his family are from Montana?? and drove out to the Reunion on the Oregon Trail, picking it up at Chimney Rock in Nebraska. See the “Traveling the Trail Today” posting following.

We are connected in our genetics and sometimes even our quirks and behaviors.  Merrilee Johnson spoke about learning that the family “pout”, where when concentrating you extend out your lower lip, was inherited from Mary Cooper. Brian Hewitt said he and his kids do it and when he was young, he was told that he better put that back in or a bird would land on it.  Jessica ???? said that she heard that, too.

PROGRAM – HOW WE BELONG Brian Hewitt, HMC historian, discussed the connections of our ancestors; how they lived and worked together despite any differences and how they were respectful and caring to others whose differences were beyond those in the family. He noted interactions our ancestors had that can serve as examples of how we can better get along in our more polarized society today. See the “We All Belong” posting.

Traveling the Trail Today

George Bailey; his wife, Anita; his brother, Stanley Bailey; his cousin, Susan Johnson; her husband, ????; Susan’s brother, Richard Fredenburg; George and Anita’s son ???? made a vacation of following the last half of the Oregon Trail starting at Chimney Rock, Nebraska, all the way to the Reunion. George, Anita, and ???? live in Montana. ???? are from???  They made their own wagon train, traveling in their three trailers. Stopping at historic monuments, museums, and interpretive centers, they followed along in Charlotte Kirkwood Matheny’s book, Into the Eye of the Setting Sun, and found it made the book come alive.

They were surprised that some of the buildings at the forts are still standing. Others are reconstructed.  They also were impressed with the continued existence of the ruts from the wagon wheels, some four to five feet deep. Even more surprising were the ruts from where the pioneers walked alongside their wagons. The ruts were made by the thousands of people who traveled the Trail. Because our ancestors were the first train, at least to come the whole way to the Willamette Valley, the ruts did not exist as they came across. The grass for the cattle had not been overgrazed, and the water they had to drink had not been polluted by animals and poor human sanitation. Travelers that followed them dug many shallow graves in the trail. The bones were sometimes unburied by the wagon wheels. The Baileys and Johnsons saw mounds along the trail that were probably graves where over the last century and a half the dirt had piled up over the rocks that the pioneers had placed on them so animals would not dig them up. The depth of hardship of which they saw physical evidence, was sobering.

On Saturday before the Reunion, the Bailey clan visited the Hopewell Cemetery. They are descended from Henry Matheny, brother of Daniel Matheny, from whom most of us descend, and it was Henry’s wife, Rachel Cooper Matheny, who as a widow donated the land for the Hopewell Cemetery.  It was Henry and Rachel’s daughter, Sarah Matheny, who eloped with Aaron Layson in the dual wedding, where her cousin, Adam Matheny married Aaron Layson’s sister, Sarah Layson, just as they were about to embark on the 1843 train.

We All Belong

Our historian, Brian Hewitt, talked about the circumstances of how our family came West and how they interacted when they got here.

Our ancestors were descended from the Huguenots*, who were persecuted in Europe. They emigrated to the Pennsylvania Colony because William Penn, who established the colony, allowed all peoples and they lived in peace.

They would have come west for the prospect of free land, but that probably wasn’t the only or even the main reason. They were most likely men who had wanderlust; they were enticed by the adventure of it all. They knew about the region because the British, Spanish, Russians, and French were already here. When they got to Oregon, they could go no farther west. This was the end of the world as they knew it.

Contrary to the image people often have based on what occurred with settlers of subsequent years, there was no free land when our ancestors came to Oregon in 1843. In fact, they had no legal claim to land until the 1850 Homestead Act. It was not uncommon for settlers to just declare ownership based on their word and descriptions of geographic features, e.g., “from the riverbank to the top of the rise”, or “as far as I can see from this point.” Unfortunately, that meant that they were claiming land that had already been home to the Native tribes.

When our family came here, they were not bothered by Indians. On the Trail, when they circled the wagons at night, it was to corral the livestock, not for protection. Brian’s grandfather, Derrell Hewitt, impressed on him that our family would not have been here except for the help of Sticcus, a member of the Cayuse tribe. Sticcus and his fellow hunters were returning from the Dakota land (which included what is now North and South Dakota and Montana) with their ponies loaded with buffalo meat and hides. Marcus Whitman, who was returning to his mission in what is now eastern Washington, asked Sticcus to guide the 1843 wagon train to Oregon. ??through the Blue Mountains??? Speaking no English, Sticcus did so and ensured our family’s safe passage. Brian’s grandfather spoke Chinook jargon and Brian remembers hearing him and others at the Reunion talking in it.

Brian’s grandfather told him a lot of the other pioneers did not like our family because our family did not charge the Native peoples for passage on the ferry.  They let them cross for free after the paying passengers. Derrell said the Mathenys felt it was wrong to charge them because this was their homeland first.

Henry and Elizabeth Hewitt bought their land from the son of John McLoughlin. Even though Mr. McKay was the son of probably the most powerful man in the territory, he wasn’t allowed to own land because his mother was Native. The Hewitts asked Mr. McKay what he wanted for the land and he said four hundred dollars and a yoke of oxen.

Over time, both the Hewitts and Mathenys were known to take in Native children.

The Hewitts were adamant Unionists and the Millers were adamant Confederates. When ???? Hewitt and ??? Miller had a child, they named him Early Ellsworth after Lieutenant General Jubal Early of the Confederate army, and Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, a Union hero, the first to die in the Civil War.

Brad Kerr related a story told to him by George Gay a neighbor of the Hewitts, Mathenys, and Coopers. The story was about a settler and a Native American who fought against each other in the Cayuse War and later became friends.

Henry Hewitt reminded us that Horry, the eighth of the nine Hewitt boys, never married and was said to march to his own tune. He was the only one that did not profess to the Christian faith. However, no one put him down. It is possible he was gay, and family loved him even if they disagreed.

Most of our family were adamant abolitionists, opposed to all forms of slavery.

It is healthy to dialogue, disagree, and argue, but we all belong together because we are lucky enough to know where we came from.

Today we are polarized racially, socio-economically, and politically. There is only one race. We are all related. It is good to appreciate where we come from and remember who we are. We can learn from our ancestors and follow their model that we all belong.

*“Huguenots were French Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who followed the teachings of theologian John Calvin. Persecuted by the French Catholic government during a violent period, Huguenots fled the country in the 17th century, creating Huguenot settlements all over Europe, in the United States and Africa.” Mar 16, 2018. https://www.history.com. 

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Reunion 2024

Wednesday, July 24th, 2024

WHEN: The Hewitt-Matheny-Cooper Family Association annual Family Reunion will take place Sunday, August 4, 2024. It is always on the first Sunday in August.

WHERE:

IN PERSON At Maud Williamson State Recreation Site, 22500 Wallace Rd., NW, Salem, Oregon (between the cities of Salem and Dayton) at the intersection of Oregon Route 221 and Oregon Route 153.

ONLINE: The virtual event this year will be on Google Meet. The Virtual Reunion link is: https://meet.google.com/mko-brtr-iyu

The link will be available on Facebook HMC Family Group as well as here on the website, HMCFamily.org.

For Virtual Reunion support contact Melissa Gomez 503-851-4145 or melclark2@gmail.com.

SCHEDULE:

9:00 Visiting, family albums available to view, storytelling, kids’ games, The Daniel Matheny Hewitt Two-Hops-and-a-Jump Challenge (see below), and the Country Store.

New – Silent Auction

11:30 Virtual event begins online.

12:00 noon Potluck picnic followed by annual family meeting.

Elections this year are for two Council members from the Matheny branch.. You can volunteer or nominate someone at the meeting.

PROGRAM:

SPEAKER George Bailey and his family from Montana have gone back to Missouri from where the Great Migration wagon train our ancestors came west on originated, and have followed the Oregon Trail all the way out. They will be on hand to tell us about their journey and what the Trail is like today.

MAIN PROGRAM We all belong to a big, historic family descended from those who came on the 1843 wagon train, connected to those who had been here for centuries when the wagon train arrived, and expanded to those we have partnered with from around the world since then. President Merrilee will facilitate as we explore the ways the family links us, how and why it all came together, and how we spread out. Our historian, Brian Hewitt, will give background history. Come share how we connect to family in all our own ways and celebrate the sense of belonging.

WHAT TO BRING:

A potluck dish to share. Plates, utensils, water, and lemonade will be provided. Please join in to help with the cleanup.

For the silent auction, please consider bringing family heirlooms, historical items, and treasures that no longer have a place in your life but that you think will be appreciated by family members.

Donations for the Country Store. Bring items large or small that may be of interest to family members, including extra produce or canned goods from your garden, plants, services, books, household goods, handcrafts, art, etc.

We are once again updating our mailing lists. Please send your email and postal mail addresses to registrar@hmcfamily.org, or Melissa Gomez 503-851-4145. You can also put them on the list at the registration table when you are signing in at the picnic; or in the sign-in or chat if you are attending online.

Bring a spring in your step for the Daniel Matheny Hewitt Two-Hops-and-a-Jump Challenge. We have a special guest this year, Devereaux Clark, the all time champion of the event we have been holding for sixteen years. But don’t worry, there are a number of other age categories. You can enter at the picnic or try it wherever you are and post your results online. For the history and details of the event see Daniel Matheny Hewitt Challenge -Two Hops and a Jump in the page listings to the right.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE REUNION, contact Merrilee, our HMC president at merrilee.s.johnson@gmail.com or 503-550-9339.

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