away from him, and he died of thirst about a half mile west of the canyon which bears his name.
VENETA, Lane County. Veneta post office was established November 3, 1914, to serve a community which was started in 1913 by E. E. Hunter. He named the townsite for his small daughter Veneta Hunter.
VERBOORT, Washington County. This place was named for William Verboort, who owned part of the Henry Black donation land claim. The place is about two miles north-northeast of Forest Grove.
VERDURE, Linn County. This is a station on the Oregon Electric Railway. When the line was originally built the station was called Oakville, for the community of Oakville, a pioneer settlement about one mile to the west. Due to confusion with other places in the Pacific Northwest, the name of the station was changed to Verdure in December, 1916.
VERNIE, Malheur County. Vernie post office, about five or six miles northwest of Ontario, was established March 29, 1909, with Cornelia Belknap first and only postmaster. The office was discontinued May 31, 1913, with mail to Payette, Idaho. In April, 1947, C. D. Warren of Chiloquin wrote that he was the son of the postmaster, and that the office was named for a boy named Vernie who was resident in North Carolina. A Mrs. Buchanan was to be served by the new Oregon office, and she wanted the place named Vernie for her grandson, who was the youth in North Carolina. Mrs. Buchanan's son Bert also put in a plea for the name Vernie, which was adopted, apparently to the annoyance of the postmaster elect.
VERNON, Marion County, Gill's Oregon map of 1874 shows Vernon post office a few miles northeast of Salem, near the west line of section 2, township 7 south, range 2 west. This office was established February 2, 1869, with Benjamin B. Wilson first postmaster. The office was closed April 6, 1874. The place was named for a local family.
VERNONIA, Columbia County. The community of Vernonia was first settled by Judson Weed and Ozias Cherrington, of Ohio, in 1876. Sometime thereafter when the question of getting a post office came up for consideration the matter of choosing a name had to be settled. At a meeting held in the schoolhouse the name of Auburn was suggested for Auburn, Minn., and Cherrington suggested the name of Vernonia for his daughter in Ohio. The community was named Vernonia and the precinct was named Auburn. This arrangement continued for some years but as a result of the confusion that followed the county court changed the name of the precinct to Vernonia. Some interesting facts have come to light about Miss Cherrington, the most important of which is that her name was not Vernonia at all, but Vernona, so the place does not bear her exact name. Vernona Cherrington became Mrs. W. H. Dawson, and in March 15, 1942, she was living in Saxe, Virginia. On that day she wrote to Omar C. Spencer of the Portland bar and provided some biographic data. She was born March 30, 1868, apparently in Ohio. Her mother died when she was a small child, and her father emigrated to Missouri and on to Oregon about 1873, leaving Vernona with his stepmother. She never saw him again, as he never went back to Ohio and she never visited Oregon. Miss Cherrington was married to William H. Dawson in 1890 and moved from Jackson, Ohio, to North Carolina in 1902, and later to Virginia. Her father was thrown from a
