Acquitted murder suspect became first ‘lady lawyer’

Acquitted murder suspect became first ‘lady lawyer’

Author: www.offbeatoregon.com (finn @ offbeatoregon.com) February 16, 2026 Duration: 7:35
Many historians, eager to see in her the caricature of the nagging, garrulous fishwife and gold-digging black widow, have missed the real story of Mary Leonard — and done both her, and the historical record, a disservice. (The Dalles, Wasco County; 1880s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/1205b-mary-leonard-murder-trial-part1.html)

The Offbeat Oregon History Podcast is a daily service from the Offbeat Oregon History newspaper column. Each weekday morning, a strange-but-true story from Oregon's history from the archives of the column is uploaded. An exploding whale, a few shockingly scary cults, a 19th-century serial killer, several very naughty ladies, a handful of solid-brass con artists and some of the dumbest bad guys in the history of the universe. Source citations are included with the text version on the Web site at https://offbeatoregon.com.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Offbeat Oregon History podcast
Podcast Episodes
For Oregon pioneer family, highway robbers were lifesavers [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:04
The armed men who apparently came to rob and kill the travelers helped pull them over the summit of McKenzie pass instead - after discovering there were six children in the wagon. (For text and pictures, see https://offb…
‘Diamond Bill’ Barrett was a modern Mr. Wickham [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 13:15
'Diamond Bill' Barrett earned his nickname by sweet-talking a jewelry store into letting him borrow a $55,000 diamond, which he promptly hocked. Later, he deployed that legendary charm to sweet-talk two heiresses into ma…
Rescue station keeper’s cowardice got 11 killed [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:38
At the critical moment, the keeper of the rescue station at Cape Arago lost his nerve and deserted his waiting crew. Eleven shipwrecked sailors drowned while he huddled behind the warm stove in his cabin. (Cape Arago, Co…
Oregon Vortex: 95 years of keeping experts guessing [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:41
ABOUT 20 YEARS ago, Alex Hirsch, a student at the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, set out to make a low-budget short animated film that he hoped would become a demo reel one day. It was called “Gravity…
The crazy story of U.S.’s first woman governor (Part 2 of 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:06
HALFWAY THROUGH HIS second term in office, Governor Chamberlain ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate, and won the election. So he resigned his office as governor in favor of his Secretary of State, Frank W. Benson, and prep…
The crazy story of U.S.’s first woman governor (Part 1 of 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:35
IF YOU ASK most Oregonians who the first woman governor in state history was, they’ll have an immediate answer … but they’ll be wrong. Conventional wisdom holds that the first woman to take the gubernatorial purple in th…
Land-fraud swindlers plundered Oregon badly (Part 2 of 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:11
Happily ensconced in their little bubble of like-minded businessmen and politicians, the land thieves had gotten to be a bit out of touch with how their activities were playing with the public. As the new century dawned,…
Land-fraud swindlers plundered Oregon badly (Part 1 of 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:17
ON THE MORNING of Dec. 7, 1904, Stephen A.D. Puter had just arrived at the office of U.S. Marshal Jack Matthews. He was expecting some friends to come by … and bail him out of jail. Puter had just been convicted of maste…
Running from FBI? Hide in a friendly Oregon town! [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:43
HAPPY NEW YEAR! In the spirit of the American tradition of the season, today we’re going to explore the stories of two Missouri men whose New Year’s Resolutions probably once included “Give up crime” and “Hide from the F…