A Body in the Bay: The Cryptic Note Left in a Dead Man's Skiff
An unidentified man is found adrift in Admiralty Bay, and the only clue is a strange note in his pocket about a neighbor, a house, and cloth nailed to the walls.
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.
Thomas Robinson, boatman, running between this port and Whidby Island, brought the news Wednesday afternoon that the body of an unknown man had been found in Admiralty Bay on the morning of the 27th inst. The remains were clad in colored canvas overalls, gray flannel drawers, red inside flannel and checked plaid outside shirts, and heavy gum boots, and in the skiff was an oil-skin overcoat. He had evidently died from exposure or sudden illness. A paper was found in one of his pockets stating in substance that a man of the name of S. Anderson had entered his house and put some cloth on the walls, to which he had objected and tore it down.
“A paper was found in one of his pockets stating in substance that a man of the name of S. Anderson had entered his house and put some cloth on the walls, to which he had objected and tore it down.”
An unnamed man, a scrawled grievance about a neighbor messing with his walls, and no one left to explain it—the note is a reminder that even the most ordinary disputes could end in lonely, unrecorded death on this coast. Then as now, the water around Port Townsend keeps its secrets.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.