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According to “the Centennial Story of Monmouth” (1856-1956) by Gordon W. Clarke, the city was incorporated in 1880. In those first years, because of farming operations, it was often impossible to get a quorum for a council meeting from May to September.
A group, who were from there, including Elijah Davidson, Squire Whitman, and Thomas Lucas, named the town after Monmouth, Illinois.
Land for the city (640 acres) – to be home for the new Christen College, was donated by John E. Murphy, Whitman, Lucas, John B. Smith, and Elijah Davidson.
It’s said Ira F.M. Butler selected the city’s name at a meeting of the founders. He broke a tie vote by deciding on Monmouth rather than Dover. It was agreed that proceeds from the sale of town lots were to be used to establish a college and to be placed under supervision of the Christen Church.
The College was to be named Monmouth University. On January 18, 1856, the territorial legislature granted a charter for the organization of Monmouth University.
Because of the provisions of the original charter, Monmouth remained the last “dry” town in Oregon, until 2003 when the law was reversed, and the first alcoholic drink was ever served.
Pioneers who migrated from Independence, Missouri founded Independence. It was named by Mrs. Thomas Burbank, wife of one of the earliest pioneers, who settled two miles south of the new city.
E.A. Thorp, who plotted North Independence (now known as Old Town), had lived in Missouri town. When he made the plan in 1850, he consented to the name Independence on condition that Thomas Burbank would live in the new town two lots given to him. Thus the city did not become Thorp’s Town, and the city of Independence was born.
In 1847, Henry Hill came across the plains looking for a level piece of ground to raise stock. On November 14, 1847, he founded his location on the west banks of the Willamette River (south of Ash Creek) and marked off his 1-mile square donation land claim.
In 1867, after returning from California gold mines, he plotted 40 acres for a town site, thereafter to be known as Henry Hill’s Town of Independence.
Official life in Independence began in 1874, with an act to incorporate the town, passed on October 13, 1884. Only Henry Hill’s Town was included. The city charter bill of February 26, 1885, incorporated E.A. Thorp’s Independence and Henry Hill’s Independence
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