The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1894-01-20
ALMOST FORGOTTEN.
Decline of Woman VINO Had NInIion-
aires at Her Feet.

Decline of a Woman VINO Had Million
aires at Her Feet.
In answer to the question who MUIR
dered A. P. Crittenden in San Francisco
in 1870, the Portland Telegram relates
the following interesting history:
Laura D. Fair was the woman who
murdered A. P. Crittenden, famous
lawyer, in the county of San Francisco,
in 1870, while he was crossing on the
ferryboat with his wife and several
children from Oakland to San Francisco.
Mrs. Fair was Of Southern birth, and
possessed of much physical and intel
lectual beauty in those days. She had
many admirers at that time, but Crit
tenden won her from all others by his
generosity and uncommon devotion.
The woman swayed peculiar influ-
ence over him for time, even to the ex-
tent that he sent his wife and children
east on a protracted visit. At length,
however, his better nature asserted it
self, and when he told the fair woman
that he proposed writing his wife to re-
turn she threatened to kill him. Never
dreaming that the female upon whom he
had lavished mint of money, and for
whom he had sacrificed his social posi-
ton, would execute her threat, he, on
that fatal day, went to meet his return
ing family. She, however, proved true
to her word, and while Crittenden was
merrily chatting with his returning
family aboard the ferry the murderess,
closely veiled, approached and fatally
shot her benefactor before the eyes of
those dearest to him.
The woman was tried on an indict-
ment charging her with murder, before
the late Judge j. w. Dwinell, judge of
the 18th judicial district, and her coun-
sci were two of the most distinguished
members of the San Francisco bar, the
late Elisha Cook and General w. II L.
Barnes. Though a strong fight was
made for her life and liberty, the jury
convicted her of murder in the first de-
gree, which verdict, then, was hailed
with undisguised pleasure. Judge
Dwinelle had known the woman socially
before she became notorious criminal,
and as he passed sentence of death upon
her tears bedimmed his eyes and moist
ened his cheeks.
While this woman was fguratively
standing under the shadow of the gallows,
the supreme court granted her a new
trial, and on that occasion one Leander
Quint became associated with the de-
tense. He was known as scientific jury
manipulation; and Mrs. Fair had more
reason to be grateful to him than all the
eloquence and legal lore of her other
lawyers, that the second jury rendered
farcical verdict of acquittal.
The conduct of this jury exasperated
San Francisco so that several of its
members were ostracized for a number
of years; and the murderess, when she
emerged from her prison cell after
years confinement in the old Broadway
street jail, met with very frigid recep-
ton from the lowest to the highest. Her
attempts to lecture were Missed down,
and eventually she became s'mud hen"
"a female curbstone stockbroker). After
the virtual death of the Washoe mining
stocks, she unsuccessfully tried to sell
subscription books, but, as she was no
longer personally attractive, and as her
crime under such circumstances could
not be condoned, she twas not in it..
She still haunts San Francisco, through
whose streets she ghost-like wanders
like figure of the dim, forgotten past,
of whose adventures, during the golden
years when cavaliers as well as million
aires were at her feet, an interesting
volume might be compiled.