Collection is open for research.
Nineteen of the speeches were acquired between 1901 and 1908, and the others were likely acquired in a similar time frame. Telegraph to James Lotan was gift of Alfred Blaker, February 1960 (Lib. Acc. 8547); the other correspondence was most likely acquired in the early or mid-20th century.
Speeches are arranged in chronological order.
John Hipple Mitchell was born in 1835 in Washington County, Pennsylvania, with the name John Mitchell Hipple, and changed his name when he came to Oregon in 1860. The Oregonian newspaper would later allege that he had made the name change when he abandoned his first wife, Sarah Hoon, and fled Pennsylvania with his mistress.
Mitchell became city attorney of Portland, Oregon, in 1861, and in 1862 was elected to the Oregon Senate; during this time, he also had a private law practice. In 1873, he successfully challenged Henry W. Corbett for Corbett's seat in the U.S. Senate. He lost reelection in 1878, but returned to the Senate in 1885. In 1896, a political coalition led by Henry W. Corbett, Jonathan Bourne, and William U'Ren successfully blocked Mitchell's reelection by preventing a quorum in the Oregon legislature for its entire 40-day session. The legislature did not appoint a new senator until a special session in 1898, when it elected Joseph Simon. After his 1896 defeat, Mitchell returned to private practice, before he made a comeback and won a fourth term in the U.S. Senate in 1901. During his career in the Senate, Mitchell was successful in gaining federal appropriations for Oregon, such as funding for a U.S. government exhibit at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition.
Mitchell married Sadie Hoon in 1857; the couple had two children. In 1862, Mitchell remarried to Mattie Price, and they had six children.
On December 31, 1904, a federal grand jury indicted Mitchell on the charge that he had accepted bribes in exchange for influencing the General Land Office to approve fraudulent homestead patents that were then sold to lumber and livestock companies for a profit. Although Mitchell denied the charges, both his law partner and his private secretary testified against him. Mitchell was convicted in 1905. That December, Mitchell died from complications of dental surgery, while awaiting his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sources: John Hipple Mitchell (1835-1905), by Oliver Tatom, Oregon Encyclopedia,
John H. Mitchell speeches and correspondence, Mss 831, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Collection was titled "John H. Mitchell correspondence and speeches" prior to 2022. Collection was rearranged in 2022.
Other collections at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library that include Mitchell's papers are: Joel Palmer papers, Mss 114; Henry Failing papers, Mss 650; Galloway family papers, Mss 730; Philip Foster papers, Mss 996; John F. Calbreath papers, Mss 1027; Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition records, Mss 1609; Charles Wolverton papers, Mss 1661, and Henry Moorhead Montgomery papers, Mss 2298.
The bulk of the collection consists of printed copies of speeches that U.S. Senator John H. Mitchell delivered. The topics of these speeches include: tariff bills; Mitchell's opposition to Chinese immigration to the United States; Oregon's electoral vote in the 1876 U.S. presidential election; Mitchell's endorsement of a U.S.-controlled canal being built through Nicaragua; infrastructural improvements to the Columbia River; the 1890s debate over the use of silver for currency; and the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. The collection also includes a speech that Mitchell delivered before becoming a senator, and a speech he gave in response to being indicted for accepting bribes.
There are three items of correspondence in the collection: A May 8, 1890 telegram to James Lotan, regarding a bill for a tariff on wool; a May 8, 1891 letter to Thomas Guinean, which he had sent with a copy of a letter sent to Customs Collector for Alaska E. T. Hatch; and a printed letter to Republican Conference Chair Samuel Hughes, dated February 22, 1897, urging that Oregon Republican legislators appoint a new U.S. senator before the Oregon legislature adjourned.
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.