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John McHargue IIJohn McHargue II moved to Missouri in the 1820's. His oldest son, William born October 17, 1804, was a well-known wagonmaster in this area. He traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah with his overland train made up of 40 to 80 giant canvas-covered freight wagons, each requiring six yoke of oxen or mules and two drivers. He was the first to couple two wagons together, each having 6,000 pounds of freight. This was also drawn by six pairs of oxen. William seldom, if ever, lost an oxen. He was considered the best. He had dealings with Brigham Young. William also deliverd salt pork to the army in Utah. William once drove 1,500 head of cattle to California. It took him a year, and he lost 500 of them, but in Sacramento he traded the surviving herd for a 40,000 acre ranch. This was turned over to his partners in Missouri, and he collected his fee in cash. Meantime, William also did a thriving trade in outfitting and advising emigrants bound for Oregon or California. James, born August 6, 1822, the younger brother of William, migrated to Oregon in 1847and settled in the foothills southeast of Brownsville. William joined his brother in Oregon in 1853. With William and his wife(they had no children) were 20 other families. In a letter dated January 22, 1853, William wrote his brother and sister in Missouri that he expected to start for Oregon in the spring (1853) . The party to consist of Himself and wife, John and F.F. Tycer, John S. Wright, Henry Tilleson,Nathaniel Rice, Elizabeth Proffitt and Lewis Tycer and family and others. Lewis Tycer and family arrived in Linn County in 1853, lived awhile on the old Thomas Morgan place, the took a claim north of the Calapooia River, a few miles east of Brownsville. He was forty-seven years of age when he came to Linn County. The remainder of John McHargue II's children live in the area today. |