Though no criminal cases were set down in scanty Island County records for 1853, Whidbey settlers were stirred early in May that year by the murder of 60-year-old Judah Church at Crescent Harbor.
And, in a single word, if there is any work in the world which cannot be so well finished by another as by him who has commenced it, it is that at which I labour.
The first recorded death was noted on May 22, 1853, when settlers discovered the body of Judah Church in the woods of his claim near Oak Harbor. A coroner’s inquest was hastily convened at the site—official verdict, “unknown”—and the sixty-three-year-old native of Michigan was buried where he was found.