Edmund C. Fitzhugh, a lawyer and coal mine manager, arrived at Sehome in 1854, instantly becoming Washington Territory's largest employer, at Bellingham Bay Coal Co.
A Whatcom County Democratic Party organizer, auditor, Indian agent, and military aide to Gov. Isaac Stevens, Fitzhugh was rewarded with a federal appointment to the Territorial Supreme Court. While in office, the territory tried him for murder and for gambling, but he won acquittal.
In 1860, he left Sehome for Washington, D.C., to help Stevens run Vice President John Breckinridge's presidential campaign against Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln.

