The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1871-04-29
The Fair.Crittenden Murder.

The San Francisco correspondent Of
the Cincinnati Commercial furnishes
the following history of Mrs. Fair
whose trial is now exciting public at
in San Francisco for murder:
Your readers may possibly rcmem-
Der that last November Mrs. Laura -.
Fair shot A. u. Crittendcn, Il noted
lawyer of San Francisco, and Il nephew |
of tho celebrated John J. Crittcndcn, of
Kentucky. The trial has now been in
progress many days, and, in common
with thousands of others, I have
watched it with great interest. 1t is to
be published in pamphlet form, and
believe it worth while to give brief
outline of the circumstances, for it is a
most curious piece Of crime in itself,
and illustrates certain OF the worst as
poets Of California life. The story of
their guilty love, with all it's plots and
counterplots, it's strange conVOlutions,
mistakes and intricacics, its infatua-
tions, its wide wandcrings, from Yreka,
in the extreme north of California, to
Havana, New York, New Orleans,
Virginia City, down to the final awful
and deliriOus tragedy on the San Fran
cisco ferry-boat, would make n novel
equal to s'Thc Woman i'll Whitc.' 1t
| would be as full ofshricks, and swoOns,
and pistols, and palpitations, as that
| most dreary and impossible story of
asst. Elmo.''
Mrs. Fair is rather petite, II woman
of unlimited energy, daring, fertile in
resources, evidenced by accommodating
$40, 900 of her own carnings,) educated,
but Il tritlc too masculine, imprisoned,
hysterical, intense, true child of the
| ,r1n h.,..
on the stage two or three times, has,
once or twice during the trial, struck a
theatrical attitude and tone, and, upon
some ladies applauding and being fined,
she promptly offered to pay their fines,
and would have done so if allowed.
Mr.. Crittcndcn, on the other hand, APP
pears to have been of tho Harry Clay
stamp, frcc-handed, l;,rge-hcarted, able
to make great sums of money from his
profession, but forever plagued with a
constitutional and chronic i1npccnniosi-
ty, and hedged about with g fatal irrcs-
olution which nla''-'hl ''ilaplc 10 hceP :
r--..,.:.s 80 ulvorce the former, and
never able to screw his courage to tho
sticking point, yet always pursuing the
after to the ends of the earth, either
Or with innumcrabfe and the
most eloquent letters.
OUTLINE OFTIIE STORY.
Mrs. Fair was born i'll Holly Springs, {
Mississippi, in 1887. She carly married
two husbands in quick succession, from
the latter Of whom she divorced, or
thought she was, and after visiting
New Orleans and Texas, she came to
California in 1856. Surprising herself
divorced, she married Colonel Fair, and
lived with him until he died. In 1864
she was keeping furnished rooms in
Virginia City, and there became ac-
luaintcd with Mr.. Crittendcn, who had
rooms right opposite hers. In three
months they were engaged to be mar
ricd, and after about eleven months
they were on their way down to San
Francisco, when he told her for the
first time that his wife was living, and
that they should meet her in San Fran
cisco. Mrs. Fair naturally wished to
go to another hotel, but he Ovcr-pcrsu-
aided her, saying there was scandal con-
corning them, and if she would only
take rooms close to his family and come
often to sec his wife, the point Of the
would be broken. She did it.
From 1864 to 1870 it was one almost
incxtric:tblc maze of doubts, promises
of divorce never fulfilled, wanderings
to Havana, New Orleans, back again
to San Francisco, back to White Sui
phur Springs, then Virginia City, he
all the while pursuing her personally
or with hundreds of letters, and she
resolving to cast him off
because OF his irrcsOlution in getting
his divorce, and then yielding again to
the old inf:ttuation. She wrote him
hundreds of letters yet, in Havana, in
4 moment of passionate despair, she
dashed his correspondence into tho fire.
and resolved never to sec him again.
But she always returned to him again
Once, while they We're in San Fran
cisco, he gave her Il derringcr, which
he told her to carry always. She says
she always carried it when she was out
late at night. Once they 1uarrcictl,
and he came three times to see her,
when she refused to speak to him, and
the third time he called, hearing his
voice as he passed down stairs after her
mother had refused him, she lcapcd up
in a passion, ran out to the head of the
stairs, and fired down stairs after him,
though she insists she did not aim at !
him, but shot into the nop-board mere
ly to Brighten him.
All this time she was urging him to
get his divorce and marry her, or else
abandon her altogether.
1t seems his failure to go to Indiana
led to another quarrel, and Mr.. Crittcn-
den threatened to send for his wife in
the East. In the last of July, 1870, she
became acquainted with one Snyder,
and married him in week, sin desper-
ation," she says, ':tnd in the hope that
it would help her to forget him." Crit
tcndcn.) Mr.. Crittcndcn rcIcntcd us
soon rs he went away, and wrote an