Alexander Parker Crittenden (January 14, 1816 – November 5, 1870) was a 19th-century pioneering attorney and politician in California, and a member of the influential Crittenden family of Kentucky.

Early life

Clara Jones Crittenden with her children, ca

Laura Crittenden Sanchez, Ramon Sanchez, Alexander P

Alexander Parker " A.P." Crittenden was born in 1816 to Thomas Turpin Crittenden (1788-1832) and Mary Wilson Parker (1792-1869) in Lexington, Kentucky. He was the nephew of

John Jordan Crittenden John Jordan Crittenden (September 10, 1787 July 26, 1863) was an American statesman and politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky. He represented the state in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and twice served as United ...

and grandson of

John Crittenden Sr. John Crittenden (c. 1754 – 1809) was a Major in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1790 to 1805. He was the scion of a powerful family of politicians and military offic ...

He graduated from West Point in 1836 at age 20. He had once been expelled for a prank but was reinstated by appealing directly to President Andrew Jackson. He joined the army as a Lieutenant of Artillery, but quickly resigned his commission. He gained employment as an engineer for railroad companies. In 1838 he married Clara Churchill Jones Crittenden (1820-1881), and they had fourteen children altogether, but only eight lived to adulthood. In 1839, the family moved to Brazoria County, Texas where Crittenden read law, was admitted to the bar, and started practicing law. In 1849, seeking wealth, he trekked on horseback by way of Mexico and Arizona to Los Angeles, California. His traveling companions included

James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictoria ...

and Parker's brother-in-law, Dr. Alexander Jones, who suffered a knife wound in a fight in Tucson, Arizona. In Los Angeles, nearly bereft of funds, Parker was elected to the first California legislature and was provided the means for the trip to San Jose. He chaired the judiciary committee in the 1st and 2nd state assemblies. He authored legislation to incorporate the City of Los Angeles and facilitated introduction of the English Common Law into the California statutes. His wife, Clara, via Panama, with six children and 2 servants joined him in Santa Clara County, California in 1852. He established law practice in San Francisco, Crittenden and Randolph, and served as counsel in 26

Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...

cases. He helped administer the William Walker (filibuster) conquest of Nicaragua in 1855. He spoke against the vigilantes, and kept his uncle in the U.S. Senate,

appraised of that activity.

Civil War

In 1861, he became the leader of the southern wing of the

California Democratic Party The California Democratic Party is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in Sacramento. With 43.5% of the state's registered voters as of 2018, the Democratic Party has the highest number of r ...

and was elected chairman of the state Southern Democratic Central Committee, of Confederate sympathies. In 1863, with his brother-in-law attorney/politician Tod Robinson, he relocated to Virginia City, Nevada Territory after refusing to take the wartime oath of allegiance to the federal government. In Nevada Territory, Crittenden handled mining claims cases, and speculated in mining stocks. He lived in Virginia City and Aurora. He was defeated as the Esmeralda County, Nevada representative to the Nevada state constitutional convention in 1863. Clara remained in San Francisco and assisted the wife of Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston who had gone east for the war; falling in 1862 at Shiloh. The families had been connected in friendship and politics back in the Texas Republic. The Crittenden extended family personified Lincoln's

House Divided Speech The House Divided Speech was an address given by Illinois senatorial candidate and future president of the United States Abraham Lincoln, on June 16, 1858, at what was then the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, after he had accepted the I ...

during the American Civil War. Two of Parker's sons, Churchill and James Love, joined the Confederate States Army without their father's permission. After he sent them to Europe, they jumped the ship in Havana and made their ways to the Confederacy. Churchill Jones Crittenden (1840-1864), a private in the 1st Maryland Cavalry, CSA, was later captured behind the Union lines and executed as a spy; James Love Crittenden (1841-1915) had risen to be captain. Cousin George Bibb Crittenden served the CSA as a general while other cousins, Gen. Thomas L. Crittenden and Lt. Col. Thomas Theodore Crittenden remained loyal to the Union. His brother Thomas Turpin Crittenden, a veteran of the Mexican War, commanded a regiment in the first land battle of the Civil War at

Philippi Philippi (; grc-gre, Φίλιπποι, ''Philippoi'') was a major Greek city northwest of the nearby island, Thasos. Its original name was Crenides ( grc-gre, Κρηνῖδες, ''Krenides'' "Fountains") after its establishment by Thasian colon ...

in western Virginia - a Union win. Later he was captured by Gen.

Nathan B. Forrest Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealth ...

in the Battle of Stones River.

The Laura Fair affair

In Virginia City he met and started a relationship with Laura Fair, the owner of the Tahoe House Hotel. Initially Fair believed him to be single, and when she discovered he was married, he allegedly promised to divorce his wife. In November 1870, as he sat next to Clara aboard the ferry from Oakland to San Francisco, Fair shot him in the heart; he died the next day, November 5, 1870. He is buried in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, San Mateo County. Fair's subsequent sensationalized trials, revealing the tawdry details of the prolonged affair, exposed the family to great embarrassment.Haber, Carole
''Trials of Laura Fair: Sex, Murder, and Insanity in the Victorian West''
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013. Fair was the first woman sentenced to hang in California, but was freed after a retrial.The Laura Fair Affair
''The California Supreme Court Historical Newsletter''

Legacy

Alexander Parker Crittenden's letters are preserved by the University of Michigan, Clements Library. He traveled through many places in historic times and took part in events being a keen observer and skilled writer.

References

External links

*
Crittenden Family History web page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crittenden, Alexander P. 1816 births 1870 deaths 19th-century American politicians Democratic Party members of the California State Assembly United States Military Academy alumni American murder victims 1870 murders in the United States Deaths by firearm in California