Sylvester Pennoyer

Sylvester Pennoyer (July 6, 1831 – May 30, 1902) 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.

He later served as mayor of Portland from 1896 to 1898.

Early life Sylvester Pennoyer was born in Groton, New York, on July 6, 1831. His parents were the former Elizabeth Howland and Justus P. Pennoyer, a New York state legislator and a wealthy farmer. Mitchell sued and received a default judgment against Neff, with Neff's property sold at auction to pay the bill. In 1885 he ran for mayor of Portland, but lost to John Gates, partly due to his record of sympathy for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. He was re-elected in 1890 and served in the office until his second term ended on January 14, 1895. He refused to leave his office to meet Harrison at the state border. When Harrison came to Salem, Pennoyer kept him waiting in the train station (in the rain) and arrived 10 minutes late. That year the Oregon Legislative Assembly created the Oregon Attorney General office, and Pennoyer appointed George Earle Chamberlain to that post.

Pennoyer refused another request from Cleveland, who asked him to intervene when a group of unemployed workers, part of "Coxey's Army", hijacked a train to travel east and join a mass march on Washington, D.C. Pennoyer stated, "let Cleveland's' army take care of Coxey's army." His term as governor ended on January 14, 1895. Previously, while governor, he had opposed the Bull Run Water Project, and at one point he vetoed a request for a $500,000 bond to finance its construction, claiming the water, because it originated in glaciers, would "cause goiter to the fair sex of Portland." The legislature came within one vote of overriding this veto, but it stood, and Judge Matthew Deady—who had drafted it—was so put out that he called the governor "Sylpester Annoyer." Ironically, during Pennoyer's term as mayor it fell to him to take the ceremonial first sip at the new water system's dedication ceremony. He took his drink of Bull Run water, set the goblet down and said, "No flavor. No body. Give me the old Willamette."

He was the second mayor to sit in the new City Hall that was completed in 1895. Pennoyer described the building as "expensive, unseemly and unhealthful."