A joint meeting with the Linn County Historical Society was held on March 17 in Albany. Sandy and Sally Wilbur of Gresham told about the 1852 McCully wagon train that brought several people to Linn County.
Among the wagon trains moving westward in 1852 was one from Henry County, Iowa, carrying a number of families whose names would become well-known in Oregon in the second half of the nineteenth Century. Included were the Angell, Busey, Hendershott, McCully, McDonald, and Starkey families. This wagon train is the subject of thet book "The McCully Train: Iowa to Oregon 1852", which was discussed by authors Sandy and Sally Wilbur of Gresham. Included on the train was the family of Sally's great-great grandfather Asa Alfred McCully. Asa and his brother, David McCully, organized the People's Transportation Company steamship line on theWillamette River, had extensive land and cattle holdings in Eastern Oregon,and were instrumental in the establishment of the towns of Harrisburg and Joseph, Oregon. David McCully was featured at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center last fall. Asa returned to Iowa by ship and returned overland with more family members in 1853. (photo of John S. McKiernan, author of the 1852 journal included in the book, courtesy of Sandy Wilbur).