Laura D. Fair (née Laura Ann Hunt; 1837–1919) was an American murderer, whose death sentence was overturned. Her court case is notable due to her gender and the legal case framed around her gender; it received much attention in the press, and support of Fair by the suffragettes.

Early life and marriages

Laura Ann Hunt was born in Holly Springs,

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

on June 22, 1837. Her family was small and traveled around the

southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

while she was growing up; eventually settling in New Orleans. At the age of 16 in 1853, she married her first husband, 36-year-old William H. Stone, an alcohol dealer from

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

. He died in 1854. She started school at the Convent of Visitation to become a teacher. Fair left school in a year to marry Thomas Gracien, but shortly abandoned him to join her mother operating a boarding house in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

(around 1856 or 1857). She met her third husband, sheriff William D. Fair after moving to Shasta,

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Three years later, the couple separated and Fair committed suicide in 1861, leaving Laura to support herself, her young daughter, and her mother. They initially opened a boarding house in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

, but this did not fare well. They then went back to San Francisco, where she worked briefly as an actress. She was briefly married to Jesse Snyder for a few months in 1870.

Crittenden and murder

In September 1862, Fair opened the 37-room Tahoe House Hotel in

Virginia City Virginia City is a census-designated place (CDP) that is the county seat of Storey County, Nevada, and the largest community in the county. The city is a part of the Reno– Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area. Virginia City developed as a boom ...

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on South C Street, after silver was discovered in the nearby hills. In 1863, Fair started a relationship with local lawyer Alexander Parker Crittenden, who was already married, although he said he was single and a widower. Fair eventually learned the truth, and Crittenden promised her he would divorce his wife, Clara Churchill Jones. The relationship between Fair and Crittenden had lasted 7 years. In 1870, Clara Jones took a long train journey to the East Coast of the United States and reunited with her two youngest children. Fair learned that Crittenden was going to meet his wife in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

and was due to board a ferry back to San Francisco. On November 3, 1870, Fair caught the same ferry and shot Crittenden in the heart.

Trial

In April 1871, Fair faced her first trial where she claimed that the shooting was the result of temporary insanity caused by a severely painful menstrual cycle. The prosecution painted her as a fallen woman who lured Crittenden into bed and warned the jury that they had a moral obligation. While in jail,

Susan B. Anthony Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to s ...

and

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca ...

visited Fair to support her. The jury found Fair guilty of murder, and she was sentenced to hang on July 28, 1871. Fair's case was appealed with the support of suffragettes, including

Emily Pitts Stevens Emily Pitts Stevens (, Pitts; 1841/44 – September 13, 1906) was an American educator, temperance activist, and early San Francisco suffragist. She was the editor and publisher of ''The Pioneer'', the first women’s suffrage journal in the West C ...

, founder of the California Woman Suffrage Association. The conviction was overturned on the grounds of prejudice. The press, having supported the initial conviction, were decidedly upset, calling the acquittal a "shameful miscarriage of justice." After the case was acquitted, Fair worked in San Francisco as a book agent.

Death

Fair died on 19 October 1919, at age 82, in San Francisco. Her body was buried in an unmarked grave in

Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery is located at 660 Thompson Lane in Nashville, Tennessee. It is one of the largest cemeteries in Nashville. Among those interred or entombed in the cemetery, there are many prominent members of the country music ge ...

In popular culture

The case furnished some elements of the story of Laura Hawkins in the novel '' The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today'' by

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

and

Charles Dudley Warner Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

. The

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

radio program ''

Crime Classics ''Crime Classics'' is a United States radio docudrama which aired as a sustaining series over CBS Radio from June 15, 1953, to June 30, 1954. Production Produced and directed by radio actor and director Elliott Lewis, the program was a histor ...

'' dramatized the case in an episode entitled "The Incredible Trial Of Laura D. Fair" that aired on August 17, 1953.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fair, Laura 1837 births 1919 deaths People from Holly Springs, Mississippi American female murderers American people convicted of murder American female criminals Overturned convictions in the United States People from Shasta, California People acquitted by reason of insanity Burials at Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery (Colma, California)