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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. This week, we talked about Nevada's divorce ranches,

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Speaker 1: which gave people trying to obtain a divorce a place

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Speaker 1: to stay while they established Nevada residency. One of our

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Speaker 1: previous subjects who was divorced under Nevada law was James G. Fair,

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Speaker 1: whose wife Teresa, filed her divorce complaint with the First

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Speaker 1: Judicial District Court of Nevada in eighteen eighty three. Teresa

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Speaker 1: did not need to stay at a ranch to establish residency,

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Speaker 1: though the Fairs lived in Nevada and James was representing

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Speaker 1: Nevada in the US Senate, which made Teresa's petition for

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Speaker 1: divorce under the grounds of habitual adultery a huge scandal.

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Speaker 1: This episode originally came out on April twenty second, twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: So enjoy and please excuse our mispronunciation of classer mining,

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Speaker 1: which is spelled as though it should be pronounced placer.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class A production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly

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Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So Tracey, back in

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Speaker 1: the fall when I was visiting San Francisco, as you recall,

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Speaker 1: we ended our tour there and then I stayed for

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Speaker 1: a week because I love that city. But the hotel

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Speaker 1: that we were staying in had a photo of Senator

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Speaker 1: James G. Fair framed and sitting on a little piece

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Speaker 1: of furniture in the parlor, and my interest was immediately

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Speaker 1: sparked because there was no context for this fie just

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Speaker 1: sitting there. It was just there, And so I asked

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Speaker 1: around and it turned out that Fair had actually paid

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Speaker 1: for that building to be established as a boarding school

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Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety and that school was run by a

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Speaker 1: teacher named Mary Lake, and there were rumors at the

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Speaker 1: time that she and Fair were romantically involved. They both

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Speaker 1: denied these, but incidentally, Mary Lake allegedly haunts that hotel.

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Speaker 1: She never visited me. To the best of my knowledge,

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Speaker 1: we didn't see her. But I then was kind of

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Speaker 1: left with the desire to know a lot more about

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Speaker 1: James G. Fair, And it turned out as I did

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Speaker 1: some digging, oh, he was a piece of work. He

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Speaker 1: was a contemporary of Levi Strauss. He was living and

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Speaker 1: working in San Francisco around the same time as the

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Speaker 1: Denham Magnet. But though Fair often appears on lists of

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Speaker 1: the richest men in US history. He just doesn't have

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Speaker 1: the same level of name recognition, and so I thought

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Speaker 1: it might be fun to do an episode on him.

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Speaker 1: But spoiler alert, it's unlikely that you're going to come

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Speaker 1: away from this episode feeling warm and fuzzy about James G.

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Speaker 1: Fair the way you might have after the Levi Strauss episode.

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Speaker 1: He's not quite as magnanimous and lovely a man. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if your primary affection is for money and the making thereof,

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Speaker 1: you might be super into it, maybe at all costs, right,

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Speaker 1: regardless of the consequences of your search for money. Fair's

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Speaker 1: story starts in Chloher County Trone in Ireland, where he

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Speaker 1: was born on December third, eighteen thirty one, and his

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Speaker 1: father's name was also James Fair. His mother's maiden name

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Speaker 1: was Graham, and that's where he got his middle name. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we don't know her first name any longer. The records

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Speaker 1: don't seem to clearly indicate what her first name was.

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Speaker 1: But when James was twelve, his family immigrated to the

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Speaker 1: United States and they lived briefly in Geneva, Illinois. After

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Speaker 1: finishing his early schooling in Geneva, Fair went on to

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Speaker 1: study both business and science in Chicago, but the California

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Speaker 1: gold rush captured his attention and ambition when that whole

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Speaker 1: thing blew up, and so at the age of eighteen,

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Speaker 1: Fair left Illinois to seek his fortune in mining. At first,

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Speaker 1: he worked in placer mining, and that is using water

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Speaker 1: to excavate and recover the deposit that you're trying to

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Speaker 1: get at the most basic form of placer mining is panning,

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Speaker 1: but there are much larger scale and more industrial forms

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Speaker 1: of placer mining as well. He did okay in these efforts.

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Speaker 1: He made a little bit of money, but it was

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Speaker 1: never quite the major income that he was hoping for,

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Speaker 1: and Fair floundered around a little bit. Once he decided

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Speaker 1: that gold might not be the road to wealth for him.

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Speaker 1: He tried mining for quarts, because a lot of courts

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Speaker 1: was part of the source for where all of these

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Speaker 1: gold mines were coming from, but he only met with

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Speaker 1: a little bit of success. And then he actually gave

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Speaker 1: farming a whirl for a little while on a plot

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Speaker 1: near Petaluma, California, but that was similarly unfulfilling and not

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Speaker 1: really very profitable, and he gave up after six months.

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Speaker 1: In the early eighteen sixties, he shifted his gears again

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Speaker 1: away from gold and courts and agriculture and California. This

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Speaker 1: time he set his sights on Nevada. In the late

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, silver loads had been discovered in Nevada, and

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Speaker 1: Fair was eager to be one of the first people

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Speaker 1: to capitalize on the silver trade. Yeah, he didn't run

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Speaker 1: out there right as these silver loads were being discovered.

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Speaker 1: He kind of wanted to get a sense of the

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Speaker 1: whole situation and if it was really a viable thing,

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Speaker 1: since gold had not worked out. But once he realized like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is a very real opportunity, he was on top

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Speaker 1: of it. It was a really smart move, as he

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Speaker 1: was much more successful in silver mining than he had

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Speaker 1: been in gold mining, although I should point out that

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Speaker 1: many of these mines were also producing both silver and gold,

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Speaker 1: but silver was just what was making the most money.

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Speaker 1: He went to Virginia City, Nevada, which is south of Reno.

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Speaker 1: It's to the east of Lake Tahoe's northern tip. And

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Speaker 1: Fair worked prospecting in Virginia City for five years on

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Speaker 1: his own, but in eighteen sixty five, a corporate enterprise

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Speaker 1: hired him as its superintendent, and that mine was the

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Speaker 1: Opher Mine, named after King Solomon's o Fear mine, from

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Speaker 1: which so much wealth had sprung. Soon Fair was showing

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Speaker 1: just how good he was managing the oper mines, business interests,

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Speaker 1: and day to day functions, and that skill attracted the

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Speaker 1: attentions of other mining operations. He was hired as director

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Speaker 1: of the Hale and Norcross mine. He also became friends

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Speaker 1: with John W. McKay. His work at Hale and Norcross

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Speaker 1: turned it from something that just wasn't turning a profit

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Speaker 1: into a valuable venture, resulted in two billion dollars over

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Speaker 1: the course of two years. That money didn't go back

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Speaker 1: to Fair, though it went to the company. In eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty seven, Fair and Halen Norcross severed their relationship for

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Speaker 1: reasons that have never been totally clear. Yeah, there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of theories about maybe him being frustrated that

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Speaker 1: he wasn't really getting much of the profit and that

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Speaker 1: he kind of just told them to go take a hike,

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Speaker 1: or that he may have been making noises like that

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Speaker 1: and they told him to go take a hike. We

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Speaker 1: don't really know what happened exactly, but Fair and his

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Speaker 1: friend Mackay, who had also been working in mining, Towns

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Speaker 1: joined forces with San Francisco stockbrokers James C. Flood and W. S.

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Speaker 1: O'Brien to buy a controlling interest in the Hale and

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Speaker 1: Norcross mine in eighteen sixty eight, and that four man

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Speaker 1: partnership eventually came to be known by the nickname the

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Speaker 1: Silver Kings. All of them were Irish. James Flood was

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Speaker 1: not born in Ireland, but he was born in New

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Speaker 1: York shortly after his parents immigrated. This by into Hale

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Speaker 1: and Norcross was a really significant move. Prior to the

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Speaker 1: forsome joining forces to come into control of the mine.

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Speaker 1: Its previous controlling owners were the dominant powers in Nevadam mining.

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Speaker 1: These were William C. Ralston and William Sharon, and they

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Speaker 1: were backed by the Bank of California, which Ralston had founded.

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Speaker 1: They had continued to capitalize on their wealth by making

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Speaker 1: loans to hopeful speculators for the purchase of mines or

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Speaker 1: stocks in mines. They weren't really hoping these people would

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Speaker 1: turn a profit for the mine. They were hoping that

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Speaker 1: they would lose their money and be foreclosed on if

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Speaker 1: the notes weren't paid in time. Then Ralston and Sharon

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Speaker 1: would take control of the mine after it had been

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Speaker 1: foreclosed on, they would expand their own footprint. That was

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Speaker 1: actually how they had come to own Hale and Norcross

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Speaker 1: in the first place. They had not actually been the

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Speaker 1: owners when Fair worked there. Yeah, they definitely get characterized,

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Speaker 1: and not without reason, as kind of the mustache twirling

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Speaker 1: villains of Virginia City and the surrounding area at the time. Fair,

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Speaker 1: who at this point had a great deal more agency

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Speaker 1: as a controlling owner of the Hale and Norcross, was

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Speaker 1: able to run things exactly as he wished, and that

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Speaker 1: way turned out to be very, very prosperous. Because Fair

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Speaker 1: had begun as a prospector and worked in the mining

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Speaker 1: industry for years at that point, and he knew a

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Speaker 1: lot about machinery. He understood every facet of mining more deeply,

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Speaker 1: perhaps than anyone else at the time. He was also

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Speaker 1: quick to take action, but he was not impulsive. He

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Speaker 1: thought through all of his ideas and plans completely before

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Speaker 1: ever committing manpower and resources to them. He was also

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Speaker 1: completely hands on, even as a high level executive. He

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Speaker 1: would go into the minds just about every day to

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Speaker 1: inspect the progress and equipment and to update the workers

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Speaker 1: with new directives based on those inspections. Some of this

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Speaker 1: was because he obviously did not trust anybody else's judgment

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Speaker 1: as much as he trusted his own, but this really

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Speaker 1: cost him. Having his hand in every level of the

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Speaker 1: business meant that he did not sleep very much and

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Speaker 1: he had very little time for his personal life. He

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Speaker 1: did get married during this time, and we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: his wife a little bit more later, but he pretty

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Speaker 1: clearly was focused on the mind and making money. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he did everything from these inspections. He wrote all of

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Speaker 1: the checks instead of hiring a clerk or an accountant

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Speaker 1: to do it. He would do like their reports at

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Speaker 1: the end of every fiscal session and like literally go

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Speaker 1: line by line through everything they had spent money on.

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Speaker 1: He was completely devoted to this job, and the mind

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Speaker 1: was so fruitful that it became really apparent that James

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Speaker 1: Fair and his business associates should think about expanding their

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Speaker 1: holdings and maybe buy up some additional property in the area.

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Speaker 1: And some of that property already had smaller mining interests

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Speaker 1: on it, and one of the minds that they bought

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Speaker 1: a controlling interest in was the Consolidated Virginia, which they

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Speaker 1: purchased from Ralston in eighteen seventy two, Ralston's partner Sharon,

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Speaker 1: thought that the purchase was going to be dead weight

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Speaker 1: for this collection of Irish businessmen. There had been so

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Speaker 1: much effort already poured into the Consolidated Virginia mind and

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Speaker 1: it was believed to be dry. But it turned out

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Speaker 1: that belief was incorrect. And coming up, we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about what happened when Fair and his company worked the

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Speaker 1: Consolidated Virginia mine. But first we will pause for a

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Speaker 1: little sponsor break. So once Fair and his partners took

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Speaker 1: control of Consolidated Virginia, they opted to tunnel into the mine,

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Speaker 1: and for a while it did indeed seem like a

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Speaker 1: waste of time and money, and they would occasionally find

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Speaker 1: small veins, but then they would follow them only to

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Speaker 1: find an end. But then in March eighteen seventy three,

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Speaker 1: they found a vein that widened more and more the

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Speaker 1: deeper they tunneled into it, and before the news could

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Speaker 1: break that the allegedly dry mine actually contained a very

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Speaker 1: significant vein fifty feet in width. At that point, Fair

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Speaker 1: and mackay contacted their partners who were in San Francisco

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Speaker 1: and told them to buy any outstanding stock in the

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Speaker 1: consolidated Virginia mine that they could. As an aside, Fair

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Speaker 1: always claimed that he had been the one to find

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Speaker 1: this vein and that he used his years of knowledge

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Speaker 1: and skill to really carefully follow this vein of silver

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Speaker 1: that was so thin and delicate that it would have

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Speaker 1: been impossible for somebody with less savvy to do it.

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Speaker 1: But his version leaves out the fact that there was

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Speaker 1: another man named Sam Curtis who was the superintendent on

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Speaker 1: the project and he was the one that actually made

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Speaker 1: that discovery. And additionally, other accounts say that it was

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Speaker 1: really easy to follow this vein once they had stumbled

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Speaker 1: across it. Yeah, there's it comes up a lot in

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Speaker 1: various biographies of him that he always describes it as

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Speaker 1: a knife thin edge of vein that he, you know, intuited,

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Speaker 1: might go somewhere further, And then other people are like,

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Speaker 1: you could literally have driven a team of horses through there,

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Speaker 1: it was so easy to find. So some disparity in

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Speaker 1: the accounts of what this vein was actually like. Then. Also,

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Speaker 1: if you work for a publicly traded company today, this

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Speaker 1: business of buying up stock before you make a big announcement,

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Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing you have ethics training about, right.

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Speaker 1: I think that James G. Fair probably would have spat

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Speaker 1: at the idea of ethics training. That's just my theory.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't mean to in any way

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Speaker 1: disparage the van who clearly had a lot of business acumen,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think he would have been down with

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Speaker 1: ethics training. But back to the story. So once Fair

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Speaker 1: and Mackay told their partners to buy up interest in

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Speaker 1: the mine, and remember they already had the controlling interest,

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Speaker 1: they just wanted as much of it as they could get.

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Speaker 1: But they did exactly that, and they also bought as

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Speaker 1: much additional property in the surrounding area as they could,

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Speaker 1: and soon the partners had amassed a huge tract of land,

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Speaker 1: which they called the Consolidated Virginia in California. And that

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Speaker 1: vein that they had struck was massive. It came to

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Speaker 1: be known as the Big Bonanza, and just a few

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Speaker 1: years after the new company was established, their combined mind

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Speaker 1: had earned one hundred and fifty million dollars that is

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Speaker 1: not adjusted to today's dollars that was in the currency

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Speaker 1: at the time. And along the way, Fair had astutely

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Speaker 1: invited press rivals and brokers to all come and look

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Speaker 1: at the mine, which was all part of driving up

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Speaker 1: interest and value to ensure the best possible position should

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Speaker 1: he and his partners wish to sell so. After this

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Speaker 1: period of incredible growth, Nevada's mining industry started to take

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Speaker 1: on a darker image. As stock speculation led to an

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Speaker 1: economic downturn, Fair and his associates came to be viewed

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Speaker 1: as greedy manipulators of this market. Fair made a variety

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Speaker 1: of statements to the press, defending himself and defending his partners,

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Speaker 1: but their images were already pretty well tainted. Furthermore, they

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Speaker 1: had made a lot of money in part because of

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Speaker 1: this over valued mining stock, and over the years, Fair

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Speaker 1: and his friend McKay continued the hands on management of

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Speaker 1: the mines together while their partners handled finances out of

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Speaker 1: their offices in California, and Fair and McKay managed for

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Speaker 1: a long time to stay cordial, despite James Fair's tendency

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Speaker 1: to showboat and sometimes have temperamental outbursts, and that worked

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Speaker 1: largely due to McKay's willingness to just sort of navigate

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Speaker 1: around such things. And they were in many ways polar opposites,

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Speaker 1: even down to their spending habits. McKay gave away money constantly,

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Speaker 1: but he would spend very little on himself. Fair, on

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Speaker 1: the other end, would spend lavishly on what we would

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Speaker 1: probably call promoting his personal brand today. He liked to

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Speaker 1: do things that made him look big and important, but

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Speaker 1: he was otherwise really tight with money. Fair had diversified

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Speaker 1: his fortune and invested in a number of other business ventures.

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Speaker 1: Over the years, he amassed more and more wealth the

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Speaker 1: whole time. We mentioned earlier that Fair was a contemporary

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Speaker 1: of Levi Strauss, and one space where their stories are

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Speaker 1: pretty similar is in the world of San Francisco real estate.

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Speaker 1: So just as Straus spot up interesting properties around the

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Speaker 1: city to build up his holdings, Fair did the same

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Speaker 1: thing starting in eighteen sixty nine. In Fair's case, he

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Speaker 1: focused first on businesses and residential properties, but then he

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Speaker 1: started expanding his interests in his business acumen to get

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Speaker 1: involved in railroads and transit systems as well. In eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy eight, he built the South Pasife Coast Railroad, and

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Speaker 1: this also included a ferry system, and it was really

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Speaker 1: a key moment in the growth of the Bay Area

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Speaker 1: because it connected San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Jose, and Oakland,

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Speaker 1: and less than a decade after it was completed, Fair

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Speaker 1: sold the whole thing to the Southern Pacific Company in

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty six, and he made himself a million dollars

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Speaker 1: in the process. Even before he sold off the South

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Speaker 1: Pacific Coast Railroad, he had already moved into yet another

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Speaker 1: entirely new career as a politician. In eighteen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: he was elected to the United States Senate and a

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Speaker 1: race against his mining rival William Sharon, and Fare had

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Speaker 1: run on a platform that focused on the interests of

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Speaker 1: the state of Nevada, even when those interests were not

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Speaker 1: necessarily in line with his political party. The obituary that

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Speaker 1: ran it got picked up by the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: which is what I read it in, but it ran

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Speaker 1: in other papers when Fair died described him as quote

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Speaker 1: nominally a Democrat. The silver minds of the state were

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Speaker 1: a huge economic driver, and as a consequence, Fair, who

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Speaker 1: of course knew all about them, was able to prioritize

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Speaker 1: those interests to keep the state economy prosperous. And in

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Speaker 1: his campaign he told people that he didn't know anything

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Speaker 1: about politics, but he knew what the state and its

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Speaker 1: miners needed, but once he had his senatorial seat, he

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Speaker 1: didn't actually do much with it. It was estimated that

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Speaker 1: he had spent about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: getting elected, but after attending some sessions dutifully for the

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Speaker 1: first few months of his term, he just sort of

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Speaker 1: seemed to check out. Eventually, he was actually spending more

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Speaker 1: time back in San Francisco than he was in Washington,

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Speaker 1: and even on the issue of advocating for the silver

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Speaker 1: mining industry, which he had run on as his platform,

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Speaker 1: he led another Nevada Senator, John P. Jones, take the

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Speaker 1: lead when it came to speaking on the issue. On

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Speaker 1: the Senate floor, Fair voted in favor of the Chinese

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Speaker 1: Exclusion Act of eighteen eighty one, but he wasn't especially

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Speaker 1: active on any other issues. He really preferred to go

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Speaker 1: back to California and gossip to all of his friends

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Speaker 1: about Washington politicians. Then when he was in Washington, he

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Speaker 1: tended to skip sessions and drink in his office with

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Speaker 1: his friends. It turned out that he just found the

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Speaker 1: Senate to be boring. Yeah, at one point he said

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Speaker 1: something about how to him like listening to a bunch

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Speaker 1: of people talk about things like, you know, what a

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Speaker 1: person should be paid as a fair wage just bored

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Speaker 1: him to tears, and he would rather be either in

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Speaker 1: the minds or running something. He was not so much

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Speaker 1: with the legislation, but in the midst of his term

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Speaker 1: he also became the focus of a massive scandal when

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Speaker 1: his wife of twenty two years filed for divorce, and

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Speaker 1: the scandal came about because she cited habitual adultery is

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Speaker 1: the reason that she sought to end the marriage in

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty three. This was the first time such a

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Speaker 1: charge was made against a sitting US senator, and it

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Speaker 1: was nationwide front page news. Fairs fellow senators were horrified

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Speaker 1: and denounced him. The divorce hearings took place in early

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Speaker 1: May eighteen eighty three, and the testimony was big news.

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Speaker 1: That testimony was also extremely damning to James G. Fair.

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Speaker 1: One of his armors testified during the hearing and another

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Speaker 1: one provided a deposition to the court. Fair claimed the

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Speaker 1: whole thing was a political plot that had been orchestrated

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Speaker 1: by his enemies, but he also didn't contest any of

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Speaker 1: the charges that were made against him. He agreed to

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Speaker 1: the divorce, and then when the dust settled, the judgment

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Speaker 1: against him was really harsh. The conditions of the divorce

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Speaker 1: stated that James would get custody of the couple's two sons,

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Speaker 1: James and Charles, and they also had two daughters, Teresa

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Speaker 1: and Virginia, who were to stay with their mother per

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Speaker 1: the court's decision. But the big news was that missus

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Speaker 1: Fair was also granted nearly five million dollars in cash

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Speaker 1: and securities, which is believed to be the largest divorce

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Speaker 1: settlement in history at that time. This was a huge

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Speaker 1: loss for Fair, not just because of the public scandal

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Speaker 1: and the dissolution of his family, but also because it

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Speaker 1: led to the dissolution of his very successful long term

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Speaker 1: business partnership. William S O'Brien had died in eighteen seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: but McKay and Flood had sided with Teresa in the divorce.

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Speaker 1: Things had already became I'm strained when Fair had started

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Speaker 1: working as a senator while he was in Washington. Theresa

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Speaker 1: would look to McKay for support in California, and by

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Speaker 1: helping her, mackay had made Fair feel insulted. Since these

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Speaker 1: three men couldn't untangle their business feelings. Fair instead contented

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Speaker 1: himself by giving his business associates some backhanded compliments in

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Speaker 1: the press. Yeah, he would say, you know, things along

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Speaker 1: the lines are like, oh, they've done so well for themselves,

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Speaker 1: considering you know, they started out poor stupid humans like

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Speaker 1: they did. It was just really unkind to them. And

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk next about some of the family

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Speaker 1: drama that swirled around the Fairs after the divorce. But

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Speaker 1: first we are going to take a quick break and

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Speaker 1: hear from one of our sponsors. So Fair's daughters after

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Speaker 1: the divorce were raised by their mother, Teresa, and she

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Speaker 1: raised them to be educated and well mannered. Fair could

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Speaker 1: not really be bothered to do the same for his

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Speaker 1: sons had disastrous consequences. His son Jimmy, developed a serious

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Speaker 1: drinking problem, which was often reported in the press, including

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Speaker 1: what sounds to me like a terrifying night when he

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Speaker 1: drank twenty cocktails in one sitting and a doctor had

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Speaker 1: to be called because he passed out. Jimmy actually died

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Speaker 1: very young, and his cause of death was it reported

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00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:21,399
Speaker 1: entirely differently from paper to paper. Some claimed that he

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00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:24,440
Speaker 1: died of acute alcoholism, others stated that he had died

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00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:28,680
Speaker 1: of suicide. Fair's relationships with his surviving children were strained

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Speaker 1: when his oldest daughter, Teresa, who went by Tessei, got

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Speaker 1: married in a high profile society wedding. Fair was not invited,

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Speaker 1: although he claimed that he sent the newly weds a

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Speaker 1: million dollars as a wedding present, even though he had

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Speaker 1: not been invited. Yeah, it's unknown if that actually happened

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Speaker 1: or if it was something he just said to the

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Speaker 1: press to stir up their interests. He kind of liked

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Speaker 1: to be in the press, but he definitely didn't go

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00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:55,680
Speaker 1: to the wedding. Fair retired from politics after his first

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00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:58,640
Speaker 1: term ended in eighteen eighty seven, and then he settled

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Speaker 1: into the work of managing his real estate interests in

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00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:04,960
Speaker 1: San Francisco in the surrounding area. He bought more properties,

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Speaker 1: particularly money making properties like office buildings and retail spaces

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Speaker 1: that would generate rental income, and all of his rental

393
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:16,000
Speaker 1: agreements put the onus of maintenance and upkeep on the renters,

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Speaker 1: so he was able to keep most or all of

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00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:21,960
Speaker 1: that rent money rather than funneling it back into property improvements,

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00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,359
Speaker 1: and this gave him something of a slumlord reputation. His

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00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,440
Speaker 1: properties were known for being run down, but he always

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Speaker 1: claimed that the real estate taxes were just far too

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Speaker 1: high to allow him any budget for refurbishment. His wife,

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Speaker 1: Teresa Fair, died in eighteen ninety one. The Fair's son, Charlie,

401
00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:40,960
Speaker 1: tried to get an advance on the trust fund that

402
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:42,880
Speaker 1: was set up in her will in order to pay

403
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:47,439
Speaker 1: off debts that he had accrued purchasing racehorses. Charlie had

404
00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 1: also developed a dependency on alcohol, and in a hasty move,

405
00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:53,119
Speaker 1: he married a young woman who was rumored to be

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00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:56,120
Speaker 1: running a brothel out of her home. All of this

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00:21:56,359 --> 00:21:59,320
Speaker 1: caused a rift between Charlie and his sisters, as well

408
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:02,720
Speaker 1: as between and his father. And James Fair had always

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00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:05,920
Speaker 1: been a drinker. His sons inherited their problems with alcohol

410
00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: from him, but in these later years of his life

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00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:13,280
Speaker 1: his reliance on alcohol increased significantly. He also ate voraciously,

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Speaker 1: and not in a healthy way. He started each day

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Speaker 1: with four boiled eggs, a dozen slices of toast, a steak,

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00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:22,720
Speaker 1: and coffee, and the heavy meals and the heavy drinking

415
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:25,199
Speaker 1: really took a toll on his health, and as he

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Speaker 1: began to reckon with the reality of his mortality. He

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00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:31,879
Speaker 1: also decided to reconcile with his son, Charlie. By eighteen

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Speaker 1: ninety four, Fair's health started to decline rapidly, but even

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00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:39,760
Speaker 1: so he remained a contrarian. When his pastor visited to

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Speaker 1: discuss the sermon that he might give at Fair's funeral service,

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00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:46,120
Speaker 1: it made the silver Magnet so furious that he got

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00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:48,280
Speaker 1: out of bed. He put on his work clothes and

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00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:50,399
Speaker 1: he walked his office to work, and he did that

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Speaker 1: for two more days, but those were his last trips

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00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:55,919
Speaker 1: out of the house. Even though he knew that he

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00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:58,840
Speaker 1: was probably going to die soon, having someone else tell

427
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 1: him that just made him irate, so he kind of

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00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 1: wanted to prove them wrong. But time eventually caught up

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00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 1: with him. He caught what seemed initially to just be

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00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,639
Speaker 1: a cold in December, but he couldn't seem to recover

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Speaker 1: from it. He was also diagnosed with diabetes and kidney disease,

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Speaker 1: and soon after that illness, around Christmas of December eighteen

433
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 1: ninety four, he fell into an unconscious state, from which

434
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: he never awoke. On December twenty ninth, eighteen ninety four,

435
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,159
Speaker 1: James Fair died at Lick House. That was one of

436
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,400
Speaker 1: his homes in San Francisco. At the time of his death,

437
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,879
Speaker 1: his estate was valued at and estimated forty million dollars.

438
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:38,520
Speaker 1: In his will, he arranged for each of his children

439
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:41,200
Speaker 1: to be supported by the estate with a regular income

440
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:43,840
Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives. In the event of

441
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:47,120
Speaker 1: his daughter's deaths, their inheritance would pass to their children,

442
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: and in the case of his son Charles dying, his

443
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:52,399
Speaker 1: share would be split between his sisters. It would not

444
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:56,880
Speaker 1: go to Charlie's wife, Maud or any children of that marriage. Yeah,

445
00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: there had been hoped since he had reconciled with Charlie

446
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:02,440
Speaker 1: that he might also finally accept Charlie's wife, but apparently

447
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 1: not so much. Charlie had sent word to his sisters,

448
00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:08,280
Speaker 1: both of whom were living in New York at the time,

449
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,880
Speaker 1: that their father was about to die, but they had

450
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:14,199
Speaker 1: refused to answer their estranged brother because they had not

451
00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: reconciled with him. They instead sent word to other family

452
00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 1: friends in San Francisco, though about the situation via telegraph.

453
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:25,639
Speaker 1: Fair also left money to his siblings, who left his sisters,

454
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 1: Mary Anderson and Margaret J. Cruthers two hundred and fifty

455
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 1: thousand dollars each, as well as fifty thousand dollars to

456
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: his brother William Fair and twenty thousand dollars to his

457
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 1: brother Edward. Orphan asylums were also beneficiaries. Fair made provisions

458
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:42,880
Speaker 1: for orphanages run by different religious denominations in the city

459
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: of San Francisco to each have their own bequest. Those

460
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 1: are not massive bequests. They were large for the time,

461
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 1: but when you consider how much money he was doling out,

462
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,399
Speaker 1: it kind of seems like I should give some to

463
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: charity so people don't think of a journey. It's like,

464
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,199
Speaker 1: here have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Oh, you

465
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:03,359
Speaker 1: orphaned twenty five thousand. I'm not judging, yes, I am.

466
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 1: Fair also put some really interesting stipulations into his will

467
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:12,639
Speaker 1: about potential efforts to break said will. So, according to

468
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: how it was written, if any of his children contested

469
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 1: the will, their share would automatically go to the other

470
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: two siblings, and if anyone came forward claiming either to

471
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,679
Speaker 1: be James Fair's illegitimate child or claiming to be a

472
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: common law wife, they would just be issued fifty dollars

473
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 1: and get nothing more. What Fair didn't anticipate with those stipulations.

474
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 1: Was all three of his children contesting the will in

475
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:38,159
Speaker 1: a sort of unified front. None of them wanted to

476
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 1: deal with trustees and an income that was doled out

477
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: from a trust. All of them wanted to just have

478
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: their inheritance. And then, to make matters even more contentious,

479
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: the will vanished from the county Clerk's office just a

480
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:52,479
Speaker 1: month after James Fair died. It was replaced with a

481
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,360
Speaker 1: blank piece of paper in the envelope that the will

482
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: had been filed in. A lot of people were questioned

483
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: as police tried to piece to together who had access

484
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,119
Speaker 1: to this ovelope, who could have made the switch. Nothing

485
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: came of the investigation, and the will was never recovered,

486
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:11,199
Speaker 1: and the trustees claimed that the Fair children must have

487
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: taken the will so that the estate would be split

488
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,959
Speaker 1: among them. The siblings believed that the trustees had stolen

489
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: the will because they knew that it would be revealed

490
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 1: as fraudulent. And as all of these accusations were made

491
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:26,360
Speaker 1: and the investigation stalled, a woman named Neddie Craven, who

492
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: was the principal of the Mission Grammar School, came forward

493
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: and claimed that she had a will that Fair made

494
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:35,960
Speaker 1: after the one that had disappeared. This was a handwritten will,

495
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,479
Speaker 1: so the press nicknamed it the pencil will, and it

496
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:42,920
Speaker 1: left the estate to the children. The will had allegedly

497
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,880
Speaker 1: been written because missus Craven had spoken to James Fair

498
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: about a bill that was related to school teacher's pension funds,

499
00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: and he had written this copy to include a bequest

500
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,360
Speaker 1: of fifty thousand dollars to the pension fund. While the

501
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: Fair family initially supported Missus Craven in her document, soon

502
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 1: she produced more handwritten documents, claiming them to be the

503
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: writing of James Fair. Two of them left her properties

504
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: and one declared her his wife, and then that set

505
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: off a whole series of events that ended up in

506
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 1: a very expensive trial. Eventually, Craven caved under this financial pressure.

507
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: She handed over the handwritten deeds and marriage declaration in

508
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 1: return for a small sum of cash. Now, when she

509
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: initially appeared with a handwritten will that seemed to convey

510
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 1: exactly what his kids always wanted, they were like, yes,

511
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: this woman is the real deal. And then when she

512
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: was like he also left me two very big rental properties,

513
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:36,239
Speaker 1: they were like, wait a minute. And then she was like,

514
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: and I'm his common law wife, They're like hold the phone,

515
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: and it became like a whole big, crazy thing. But

516
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: as the Craven issue receded, numerous other claimants to Fair's

517
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: life and fortune emerged. Multiple women claiming to have been

518
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 1: engaged or common law married to James Fair came forward,

519
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 1: as well as a number of people claiming to be

520
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: his children. The nineteenth century passed into the twentyth century

521
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,199
Speaker 1: before this will was settled and the Fair children finally

522
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: got their inheritance. So, really, a lot of people liked him.

523
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 1: He was capable of being friendly with pretty much everybody,

524
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: even making people he had never met before feel like

525
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: they were his old friends. His career in mining had

526
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: been so successful in part because he treated everybody the same,

527
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: regardless of whether they were a wealthy executive or a

528
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: worker down in the mine. But that was only one

529
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: side of his personality. The other side is a Fair

530
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: that was fairly conceited about his own skills and intellect.

531
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 1: So in some ways it kind of seems like he

532
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: treated most people equally because he saw everyone as equally

533
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: less impressive than himself. He was not above taking advantage

534
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: of someone that he thought was foolish In business, and

535
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 1: he would later crow about business deals that were far

536
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: more favorable to him than the other involved party. He

537
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 1: was shrewd and manipulative even with his family members. At

538
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 1: one point, he gave a fake tip to his wife

539
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: about a stock, knowing that she would not only buy

540
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: her own personal savings, but also tell other people about it.

541
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: And when all of those people started buying and the

542
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: stock was hot, Fair sold his shares and made a profit.

543
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: His wife ended up losing her life savings, and he

544
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: was not especially sympathetic about that loss, which might be

545
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: another reason that she wanted to divorce him, and another

546
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: thing that would be in ethics class. Yes, that ability

547
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: to ingratiate himself to other people and just charm them

548
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: to pieces was very real, though, and it was something

549
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: that he really used to his advantage. A lot of

550
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: his most successful business dealings were built around relationships that

551
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 1: he had fostered with this very genial side to his personality. Yeah,

552
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: he was definitely two men in one. The obituaries that

553
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: appeared in various papers after James G. Fair died all

554
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: noted what an accomplished man he was, how astute his

555
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: business mind was, and how incredibly skilled he was mechanically,

556
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 1: but they didn't really paint a rosy picture of the man.

557
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: A lot of them said a lot of bad things

558
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: about him as well. In one of his acquaintances described

559
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:07,160
Speaker 1: Fair as a master mechanic, a shrewd financier, and quote

560
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: from early childhood, more interested in the affairs of James G.

561
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 1: Fair than any other soul on Earth. Oh, James Fair,

562
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: you self involved bees. Thanks so much for joining us

563
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: on this Saturday. Since this episode is out of the archive,

564
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: if you heard an email address or a Facebook RL

565
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: or something similar over the course of the show, that

566
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: could be obsolete now. Our current email address is History

567
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:40,719
Speaker 1: Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can find us all

568
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,959
Speaker 1: over social media at missed in History, and you can

569
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 1: subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the

570
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff

571
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 1: you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

572
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the ihea Radio app,

573
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

574
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: H