In re Estate of Newman

This is a contest for letters of administration. There were three petitioners: the public administrator, L. M. Cutting, a cousin of the deceased, and Rose A. Newman, widow of deceased. Letters were granted to the widow and Cutting appeals.

Rose A. Newman and the deceased intermarried in New Hampshire, November, 1856. He was then nineteen years of age and she was sixteen. Within a very short time after the marriage he came with his father to California. There was, however, no desertion, as the parties continued to correspond at least up to 1862, recognizing in all their letters their marital relation. He did not prosper in California, but occasionally sent her small sums of money. In 1864 she, knowing that her husband was still alive, and that he had not deserted her, and although, as she testified, she received a letter from him about a year before, went through the forms of marriage with one Col-burn. She continued to live with Colburn in this adulterous and criminal relation for fifteen years, when Colburn died. She had a daughter by this bigamous union, born in 1866. Colburn left an estate which apparently went to the child and petitioner, as his widow, administered upon it…