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A POSSESSION



The name Jerusha is first mentioned in 2 Kings 15:33 In the Old Testament.  Translated from the ancient Hebrew it means “possession” or “possessed”.  Jerusha was the wife of Uzziah and the mother of King Jotham of Judah.[1] I admit that I skimmed over that name in reading the Bible, but I took notice when I encountered the name in several generations of my husband’s family tree.

The first instance I have documented is Jerusha Ann Dening (or Dining) born abt. 1807 in Ireland or England.  She married George Hicinbothem sometime before 1836.  Their daughter Martha was born in 1839.  Martha married John Prentiss Mattoon, a neighbor in Clackamas County, Oregon, in 1858[2], and their daughter Anna Jerusha Mattoon was born in 1859. Did Martha know her grandmother?

Anna Jerusha Mattoon was educated in Portland, Oregon and returned to Yakima, Washington to teach school and music lessons, and serve as the first Secretary and organist of the Congregational Church. I don’t think she would have appreciated being referred to as a possession.  In 1893, Anna married George Henry Watt, a Professor of Pharmacy at Washington State College.  Sadly, she died just two years later in 1895.[3]

George Henry Watt continued as Professor of Pharmacy at WSC until his death in 1929.  Amazingly, this is where the Mattoon family tree and my maternal line cross for the first time.  My mother, Margueritte Howell Boye, graduated from the Washington State University College of Pharmacy in 1927.  I remember her talking about Professor Watt.  Who would have thought that I would meet and marry Anna Jerusha Mattoon’s great-nephew, Loren Mattoon, at Washington State University, nearly 65 years after her death.


[1] Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. "Entry for 'JERUSHA'". "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia". 1915.  
[2] Mays, Theo., editor “100 Years—100 Women”:Yakima County Washington.Yakima, Washington:Print Masters, 1989, 27-28.
[3] Mays, Theo., editor “100 Years—100 Women”:Yakima County Washington.Yakima, Washington:Print Masters, 1989, 53-54.

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