About Sylvester Pennoyer
Sylvester Pennoyer was an American educator, attorney, and politician in Oregon. He was born in Groton, New York, attended Harvard Law School, and moved to Oregon at age 25. A Democrat, he served two terms as the eighth Governor of Oregon from 1887 to 1895. He joined the Populist cause in the early 1890s and became the second Populist Party state governor in history. He was noted for his political radicalism, his opposition to the conservative Bourbon Democracy of President Grover Cleveland, his support for labor unions, and his opposition to the Chinese in Oregon. He was also noted for his prickly attitude toward both U.S. Presidents whose terms overlapped his own -- Benjamin Harrison and Cleveland, whom he once famously told via telegram to mind his own business. Pennoyer purchased the land from Mitchell, who had purchased the land at the sheriff's auction, and later Neff became aware of the forced sale. Neff then sued Pennoyer to regain the property in a case that became the U.S. Pennoyer was compelled to give the land back to Neff, and the property became a part of the Willamette Heights neighborhood in later years. Pennoyer was a Democrat most of his political career, but became a Populist in the early 1890s.
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