United States Senator. He received notoriety as a United States Senator from Oregon, serving nonconsecutive terms from March 4, 1873 to March 4, 1879, November 18, 1885 to March 4, 1897, and March 4, 1901 until his death. According to the “Oregon Encyclopedia,” a project of the Oregon Historical Society, he lived a very colorful life full of scandals and corruption. Born John Mitchell Hi pple, he changed his name to John Hipple Mitchell when he left Pennsylvania to escape west with a new identity in 1860. Leaving his first wife, a Mrs Hipple in Pennsylvania, without a divorce, he married Maggie Price in 1862 using the surname Mitchell. Years later, after entering politics with a much public life, this came to light. Receiving a basic local education, he taught school before becoming a lawyer, and building a successful practice by 1857 before the name change and heading west to California. By 1861 he had left California for Oregon becoming the city attorney in Portland. The next year he was elected as a Republican to Oregon State Senate. He taught Medical Juris Prudence at Willamette University School of Medicine from 1867 to 1871. With a nasty campaign with alleged bribes, he challenged Henry Corbett for his United States Senate seat and won in 1873. He played a part in the United States Supreme Court ruling in the 1878 case Pennoyer v. Neff, which remains today a legal and landmark decision. While holding the office of United States Senator, Mitchell sued Marcus Neff for legal fees allegedly not paid. Neff was out of state, hence he was not served on this process. Since Neff was not present for the court hearing, Mitchell won the lawsuit by default judgment and took possession within a few months of Neff's homestead . Mitchell sold the homestead to Sylvester Pennoyer . When Neff returned to Oregon, he sued Pennoyer for his homestead in Oregon courts and won. Not pleased with the verdict, Pennoyer took the case to the United States Supreme Court and lost for the final time. The same year with this negative publicity, Mitchell was not reelected for the next term to the Senate but returned in 1885. After the 1885 election, his wife released love letters, written by him to her sister Caroline, for an embarrassing newspaper publication in the “Oregonian,” and then she left for Europe. It was during this time there was a failed attempt made by his political enemies to charge him with bigamy. During the era, United States Senators were elected not by voters, but by the state legislatures. After serving two terms, he was defeated in 1896, when Corbett and his supporters prevented a quorum in the Oregon legislature for the the entire forty-day session and blocking his reelection. At this point, he returned to his private law practice, yet he was determined to return to the United States Senate, which he did with the 1901 election. Besides serving as chairman of Senatorial committee on railroads, in 1904 he was successful in obtaining federal funds for the State of Oregon for an exhibit at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition and Oriental Fair. On December 31, 1904 , he was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury, charging him with accepting a bribe of $2,000 from Stephen A. Douglass Puter, self-described King of the Oregon Land Fraud Ring, in exchange for influencing the General Land Office to hurriedly approve fraudulent homestead patents. The case came to trial with his law partner, own private secretary, and Puter testifying against him, hence he was found guilty. While waiting for an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and the United States Senate to expel him, he died from complications of dental surgery. He is one of only twelve sitting United States Senators ever indicted, and one of only five ever convicted. He died before being sentenced. During his time serving as senator, there were two other men named John Mitchell serving in the Senate, one from Wisconsin and the other from Pennsylvania.