Source: Duluth News-Tribune
(Duluth, MN) Vol: XXII Issue: 135 Page: 8
Dated: Monday, May 25, 1891
FOUR FOND WIVES - They All Claim the Darling Wilbur F.
Smith For A Husband.
Arrest For a Minor Offence Brings His Matrimonial Exploits To
Light.
The peculiar facts as they are
developed in the case of William Smith alias Wilbur V.
Smith, of San Diego, Cal. are sensational to a high degree.
They reveal the startling methods employed by a man who has
promised to love, cherish and provide for four wives residing in
four different parts of the country.
Only a few weeks ago Wilbur V. Smith was living
quietly in a charming cottage in the city of Santa Ana, Cal.,
enjoying the companionship of a dainty little Mrs. Smith
and a fifteen year old daughter. Recently he was tried in
the court of Santa Monica for burglary and acquitted on a
technicality. Today he is held __ the four walls of Orange
County's prison charged with attempting to defraud an __.
WILBUR V. SMITH
But these are small matters when
compared with the accusations which await this man of many
marriages. The publication of his arrest in the California
papers brought a telegram from San Juan Capistrano that his
wife, who resided there wished to know the nature of the charges
against him. Before the authorities hardly had time to put
one and one together, and decide that Smith must have two
living wives, they were waited upon by Mr. Huggins, of
McPherson, Cal., a wealthy rancher, who said that Wilbur V.
Smith is at the present time the lawfully wedded husband of
his sister; that the pair were married in 1889, and lived in
Colorado until about three months ago, when Smith
abandoned her and went to California, leaving her with a three
months old child.
The authorities began to be da__ed, and the petty case
of Wilbur V. Smith, accused of defrauding an inn paled
into insignificance when right on top of all came a letter from
the corn raising districts of Kansas. There, so the letter
sets forth, dwells, the fourth wife. Who wouldn't be apt
to defraud an inn with four wives all residing in different
parts of the country! And never a one of them has known
that the others existed.
Meanwhile wife No. 1 has retired to the quiet of sleepy
Anaheim, the little German city, the former home of Mme Modjeska,
and there she tearfully awaited the outcome of it all. She
is the daughter of John Benton, of St. Paul, Minn, and
relative of Thomas H. Benton and a wealthy and
influential citizen. She married Smith eight years
ago, but has resided with him very little of the time. She
is an educated and refined lady, accomplished in music and art.
Of No. 2 little is known. She has sent her
message of inquiry, the answer she has received may cause a
shock from which she will never fully recover, but that is a
matter of speculation only.
No. e is described by her brother as a lovely young
girl, very confiding and loving, who was smitten at first sight
by the dashing manner and suave ways of Smith and trusted
him implicitly.
And No. 4, what is she like? What is her story?
Smith only knows. He may have to tell it to the
court, and then all will know. Until then the surmise is
that she is, like the others, the victim of misplaced affection.
What about this man who has diluted his affections and
made them go so far Women would call him handsome perhaps.
He possesses a ready tongue and a fertile brain, he has seen
much of the world and its ways, and his intentions, it would
seem to an outsider, are just slightly dishonorable. At
any rate he has engaged in more matrimony than the law allows at
one time.
H. C. Hogaboom |
