inhabitants; thirdly, to the advocacy of the principles of the Democratic party." The paper was to be . . . free of all matters unfit for the family circle . . . lively, spicy, original, and reliable.
The Benton Leader was started by W. H. Mansfield in February, 1882.22 In August, 1884, Mansfield admitted W. W. Saunders to partnership, and the new partner acted as editor. A shooting scrape in Albany, in which the other fellow was killed, left an opening for a young southerner named Martin Luther Pipes, who became editor of the Leader. Saunders, convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for the slaying of C. L. Campbell over a girl, was finally pardoned after once escaping from the Albany jail while under death sentence. But his newspaper usefulness in Corvallis was over, and Pipes was made editor in 1886.
Though Mr. Pipes is remembered chiefly as lawyer and judge, he was eminent in Oregon journalism early in his career. In 1876 he started the Semi-Weekly Telegram, the first newspaper in Independence, in partnership with a printer named William A. Wheeler. This survived about six months. He also ran in 1881 the Independence Riverside, which had been started by G. W. Quivey two years before. He and George Belt conducted it for several weeks.23 Then he was editor of the Polk County Itemizer, moving to Dallas to handle that position in 1882. He remained in Dallas for two years, then served two years as timekeeper on the Oregon Pacific railroad construction work out of Corvallis. He left this work to accept the position on the Leader. While on that newspaper he installed the first power press ever brought to Corvallis. This $2,000 machine represented a considerable investment in those days. Pipes remained on the Leader until appointed to the circuit judgeship in 1893 to succeed Judge Robert S. Bean, who had just been appointed to the state supreme bench, where he served until elevated to the federal bench. It was while editor of the Leader that Mr. Pipes was elected first president of the Oregon State Editorial Association at Yaquina City (1887).
Mr. Pipes' elevation to the bench terminated his active journalistic career, though years afterward he contributed articles and editorials to newspapers in Corvallis and Portland at the request of editors who knew his wide knowledge and writing facility. Late in life he was appointed to a seat on the State Supreme Court bench.
One of Mr. Pipes' achievements as lawyer and editor was to help, straighten out the situation affecting the title to the site of the educational institution which is now Oregon State Agricultural College. The state had deeded the land, in the 70's, to the Methodist Church South, for an agricultural college. When the local authorities of the church deeded the land back to the state to pave the way for an appropriation for building purposes in the 80's, the higher officials of the church contended there had been no authority
