About 20 miles west of Olympia, on the highest point on the road to the coast, sits the town of McCleary. North of the settlement there is a flat piece of land nestled in the hills called Mohney's Prairie.

About a decade ago I discovered an obscure newspaper article that posed an interesting puzzle. Mr. J.K. Mohney, who lived on the prairie, told the reporter that two brothers had made a temporary home there in 1832. This is a pretty amazing claim which I have yet to verify with any other source, including living members of the Mohney family. If any of you history buffs out there can provide more information on this, I'd be delighted to hear from you.

Here is part of the article, from the Nov. 11, 1934 Daily Olympian:

"When Mr. Mohney first came to this locality from Pennsylvania 39 years ago, an aged house stood where today stands his 15-room home of his 335-acre farm. The former house and a present workshop, also a present smokehouse, were said to be 102 years old this year. They were erected by the Chase brothers in 1832, of whom today no one remembers anything other than their surnames."

"They must have come by boat either to Fort Nisqually or Fort Vancouver on the Columbia, both operated by the British. Traveled overland, homesteading on the then lonely prairie. Erected first a workshop out of hewn lumber, mortised with wooden pegs. Following that, they built a house of the same materials, miles away from everyone, 14 years before the American occupation of the Pacific Northwest, known then as the Oregon country."

"The workshop and smokehouse stand in good condition now, considering their reported age."