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>From a perhaps less biased source than our two current responders, is
this website, citing a book titled<b> </b><font
face="arial, Times New Roman" size="5"><font size="3"><small>
“Willamette Landings — Ghost Towns for the River”, by Howard McKinlay
Corning as a source:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.wheatlandferry.com/oregon/atchison.html">http://www.wheatlandferry.com/oregon/atchison.html</a><br>
<br>
</small></font></font><font face="arial, Times New Roman" size="5"><b></b></font>
<blockquote><font face="arial, Times New Roman" size="5"><b>“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</b></font></blockquote>
<p><font face="arial, Times New Roman" size="5"><b><img
src="cid:part1.04050204.05050803@earthlink.net" align="left"
height="80" width="96">This notice first appeared in the advertising
columns of the <i>Spectator</i>, April 29, 1847,</b></font><font
face="arial, Times New Roman" size="5"><b> 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.</b></font>
</p>
<p><font face="arial, Times New Roman" size="5"><b><img
src="cid:part2.02000202.01010308@earthlink.net" height="1" width="15">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.</b></font></p>
<p><font face="arial, Times New Roman" size="5"><b><img
src="cid:part2.02000202.01010308@earthlink.net" height="1" width="15">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.<br>
</b></font></p>
<p><font face="arial, Times New Roman" size="5"><small><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">continued at the listed URL,<br>
</font></small></font></p>
<p><font face="arial, Times New Roman" size="5"><small><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Bill Strickland<br>
</font></small></font></p>
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