Mary Leonard

Mary Leonard (c. 1845–October 24, 1912) was an American attorney and accused murderer in the state of Oregon. A native of France, she was acquitted for the murder of her husband that many believed she had committed. After her trial, she studied law and became the first female lawyer admitted to the bar in the Washington Territory and in the state of Oregon. Early years Marie Gysin was born around 1845 in Alsace, France. Her parents, Johannes Gysin and Elisabeth Grieder, were Swiss immigrants to France and worked in a silk mill. Marie was their second oldest child. Several years later the family returned to Switzerland and the canton of Basel. Marie immigrated about 1870 to the United States and became Mary Gisan. Some stories say she moved in order to provide income for her poor family, others recount that she was attempting to make it on her own. She moved to Portland, Oregon, by the 1870 census and was likely working as a maid for the R. R. Riley family. In 1873, her younger sister Rosa immigrated to America and moved to Portland in 1874. Mary would then begin working as a seamstress until she married Daniel Leonard in late May 1875. Marriage, divorce, murder Daniel Leonard owned a hotel and ferry in the Columbia River Gorge along the Oregon Trail. The hotel was east of Wasco, Oregon, at the point where the Oregon Trail crossed the John Day River. Daniel was 57, but he claimed 50 at the time of marriage while Mary claimed to be 30 when they were married at the St. Charles Hotel in Portland with the Reverend John Gantenbein presiding on May 18, 1875. In the Fall of 1877, Daniel filed for divorce, claiming Mary was having an affair with one of the boarders at the hotel, Nathaniel Lindsay.