The Unraveling of Judge Fitzhugh
From a high-ranking U.S. District Judge in Washington Territory to a forgotten death in a San Francisco boarding house.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The death of a once prominent citizen and distinguished official of Washington Territory, Judge Fitzhugh, who will be remembered by all pioneer citizens of the Puget Sound country, was reported by cable last week. He was a noted citizen and participant in many acts of a stirring public character prior to the Civil War. At the commencement of the struggle he went back to his native State and served her against the Government. A reminiscence of his life on Puget Sound involves the international dispute of 1859 over the ownership of San Juan Island. Judge Fitzhugh, alongside Captain William Cullen and others, attempted to collect taxes from the Hudson Bay Company on the island. After they seized thirty-nine rams and some ewes, a confrontation ensued with the Hudson Bay Company's employees and the steamer Beaver. The miserable end of this once brilliant public man, to whom nothing in the United States was impossible thirty years ago, occurred in San Francisco. The clerk of the What Cheer House found the old man dead in his room; an autopsy disclosed apoplexy to be the cause.
“The miserable end of this once brilliant public man, to whom nothing in the United States was impossible thirty years ago.”
Judge Fitzhugh's life captures the turbulent shifting of loyalties during the Civil War era in the West. His role in the 'Pig War' era dispute—an actual international standoff over a sheep—reminds us that what we now view as quaint territorial history was once a matter of armed confrontation.
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