The Daily Dispatch: January 8, 1861., [Electronic resource]

Death of the discoverer of "Baker's Island."

The discovery was on this wise: On board of the ship commanded by Captain Baker, in the year 1841, there was an orphan, named Warren Wilbur. This young man was fatally injured by falling from the look-out aloft, and his dying request of Capt. Baker, who watched over and cared for him as if he had been his own son, was to bury him on land and not in the ocean. Capt. Baker promised to do so if possible, and being in the vicinity of Baker's Island, interred him there. In digging the grave he discovered what he then thought to be a most remarkable kind of soil, the dust of which so enveloped and choked the men that they were compelled to abandon the place first attempted, and choose another nearer the shore, where it was not so dry. Thus, while engaged in performing an act of kindness, which always characterized his life, sprang there up a business for thousands of ships, and the basis of food for millions of men.