The U.S. Life-Saving Service

The U.S. Life-Saving Service

As historian Joe A. Mobley explains, the hazards of the Outer Banks were well recognized from the early days of settlement, but public policies (and funding) for dealing with them were very slow in coming.³¹ It was a costly omission, for which volunteers (such as the pioneering Massachusetts Humane Society, founded in 1785) tried to compensate. In 1790 Congress provided funds to build ten cutters for coastal service, but their function was limited to enforcing customs regulations. Another five years passed before they were authorized to help vessels in distress.³²

Colonial officials said that inhabitants of the Outer Banks should have the character and temperament that would dispose them to aid victims of the treacherous conditions, but those officials provided no funds for such aid.

Meanwhile, the number of shipwrecks and the value of lost cargo mounted steadily on the Banks. In 1800, North Carolina established “wreck districts,” each with a commissioner whose job it was to take possession of the cargo, try to determine its owner, and if necessary dispose of it at a “vendue.” In 1801 the vendue masters (as the commissioners came to be called) were authorized to recruit or deputize coastal residents to assist in the rescue of shipwrecked sailors and passengers.

Several decades later (in 1837) Congress authorized the president "to cause any suitable number of public vessels adapted to the purpose, to cruise upon the coast . . . to afford . . . aid to distressed navigators." Although not specifically authorized to do so, the Revenue Marine Service began immediately to render such aid.

A decade later, the Federal government began to fund shore-based Life-Saving capabilities by adding five thousand dollars to the lighthouse appropriation. The first money went to the Massachusetts Humane Society to build boat houses and buy rescue equipment for Cape Cod.³³ Staffing and operating such installations remained in the hands of private associations, however. The United States Life-Saving Service as a separate entity dates from 14 August 1848, when Congress passed the Newell Act and appropriated $10,000 for "surf boats, rockets, carronades and other necessary apparatus for the better preservation of life and property from shipwrecks" along the New Jersey shore.³⁴

Between 1848 and 1850, Congress provided thirty thousand dollars to build facilities and buy equipment for private volunteer rescue organizations in New Jersey, and on Long Island and the Great Lakes. Given the extreme dangers of North Carolina’s infamous Graveyard of the Atlantic, why did so much money go initially to New Jersey? It was at least partly a matter of politics. The port of New York was the nation’s fastest growing one. Commercial interests and the insurance companies were eager to see the approach to New York harbor made safer, and powerful city and state politicians were willing to back the effort.³⁵

Meanwhile, the toll in North Carolina had long been mounting. One of the state’s worst disasters ever occurred in October 1837, when the Volante Home foundered in a hurricane and the bodies of ninety men, women and children were strewn on the beach. Further disasters followed in the terrible summer storms of 1842, and more than forty vessels were lost during the ten years between 1850 and 1860.

Finally in 1854, Congress passed an act that provided for "the better preservation of life and property from vessels shipwrecked on the coasts of the United States." Ending the by then long-standing policy of merely funding private organizations, the act authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to build rescue facilities and organize services at Federal expense and under government supervision.

Unfortunately, the impetus of the 1854 Federal legislation was truncated by the outbreak of the Civil War. By 1870, as Coast Guard historian Howard Bloomfield observed, “All that remained of the [Federal] system . . . were some weather-beaten huts serving as headquarters for keepers who had little or nothing to keep.” Lifeboats were rotten and crews were decimated.³⁶

Fortunately, the postwar years brought new energy, new funds, and broader policy. Federal efforts were concentrated on two fronts: building new lighthouses on the Atlantic coast, and (at long last), establishing a Life-Saving Service (under the Revenue Marine Service, itself formed within the Treasury Department in 1869).³⁷ On the North Carolina coast, to augment the relatively new (1859) structure at Cape Lookout, lighthouses were constructed at Cape Hatteras (1870), Bodie Island (1872), and Currituck Beach (1875).³⁸ All were the responsibility of the Lighthouse Board, established on the eve of the Civil War. [ILLUSTRATION: Life-Saving Station on the NC Beach Harper's New Monthly Mag Feb 1882 p371. CAPTION: Fig. 6-5: Life-Saving Station on the North Carolina Beach, ca. 1882. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February 1882, 371]

The hiring of Sumner I. Kimball as head of the Revenue Marine Service in February 1871 has been called “the single most important event” in the history of the Life-Saving Service. Soon after taking office, Kimball ordered an inspection of installations in New Jersey and on Long Island, which proved to be in a deplorable state. The report spurred Congress to appropriate $200,000 for the new Life-Saving Service, which was directed to establish stations in states that did not yet have them. Kimball reorganized the Revenue Marine Service to provide the stations, buy equipment (the best he could find), write rules and procedures, and establish a system of inspections that would guarantee a reliable and professional Service. ³⁹ [ILLUSTRATION: Self-righting Life-boat from Merryman p vi. CAPTION: Fig. 6-6: Self-righting life-boat. Merryman, The United States Life-Saving Service – 1880 (1997), vi. Reprinted from Scribner’s Monthly Magazine.]

One of Kimball’s shrewder moves was to hire former Saturday Evening Post writer William D. O'Connor as his assistant. After losing his Post job for writing about radical abolitionist John Brown, O’Connor came to Washington in 1861and rose to be a librarian in the Treasury Department before moving to the Revenue Marine Division. He loved writing about the excitement, adventure, and heroism that were to be found in the lives of life-saving crewmen, and his skills as a writer proved crucial to Kimball’s efforts to build a professional service. Historian David Noble has called the annual reports O’Connor wrote “arguably the most exciting reading ever produced by the U. S. government.”⁴⁰ They provided crucial impetus to needed Federal action.

A Federal act in 1873 led to the building of twenty-three new life-saving stations in 1874 alone. Generally, the construction of the new stations moved from north to south. Those in North Carolina were now joined with Virginia into Life-Saving District No. 6. By the end of 1874, there were seven stations on the Outer Banks: Jones Hill, Caffeys Inlet, Kitty Hawk, Nags Head, Bodie Island, Chicmacomico (at Rodanthe), and Little Kinnakeet (near Hatteras).⁴¹ [ILLUSTRATION: Kinnakeet LS sta NCC. CAPTION: Fig. 6-7: Kinnakeet Life-Saving Station (no date). North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina Library.] The new stations improved lifesaving capabilities in North Carolina, but did not mute increased public and congressional scrutiny arising from charges of incompetence and political favoritism in the choice of keepers and employment of surfmen. Those charges led to a Federal investigation of District No. 6 in 1875-76, which brought the dismissal of fifteen keepers and surfmen for lack of experience, incompetence, and insubordination. Evidence of political favoritism and nepotism was abundant.⁴²

Meanwhile, major disasters continued to plague the Outer Banks. The Huron and Metropolis disasters of 1877-78 focused increased press attention upon the inadequacies of Federal life-saving efforts, and led to calls for militarizing the service.⁴³ [ILLUSTRATION: Uncle Sam and drowning surfmen cartoon f346.tif. CAPTION: Fig. 6-8: Thomas Nast [presumably Harper’s Weekly] cartoon in wake of Huron disaster, satirizing Federal government’s failure to provide adequate funds for the Life-Saving Service. Caption says “I suppose I must spend a little on Life-saving Service, Life-boat Stations, Life-Boats, etc.; but it is too bad to be obliged to waste so much money.” The 1020-ton steam/sail Huron was only two years old when it went down near Nags Head on 24 November 1877. Nearly 100 officers and crewmen were lost. Southeastern Regional Office archive, National Park Service.⁴⁴] The North Carolina congressional delegation joined others in opposing the move, which ultimately failed. At long last, in June 1878 President Hayes signed a bill establishing the Life-Saving Service as a separate agency within the Treasury Department.⁴⁵

But establishing the agency did not resolve the most pressing problems. It was clear that the Service in North Carolina had to be improved, and quickly. The Secretary of the Treasury recommended that enough stations should be added to bring them to within four or five miles of each other; that the annual salary of keepers be raised and the number of lifesaving crew members at each station be increased to eight; and that the active season run from September 1 to May 1.⁴⁶ As a result of his recommendation, ten more stations were added in North Carolina in 1878, from Deal’s Island (later Wash Woods) south to Hatteras. [ILLUSTRATION: Life-saving stations built 1878 Mobley p 82.jpg; CAPTION: Fig. 6-9: Outer Banks Life-Saving Stations Built 1878. Mobley, Ship Ashore!: The U. S. Lifesavers of Coastal North Carolina (1994), 82.] [ILLUSTRATION: United States Life-Saving Sta on the E Coast Harper's New Monthly Mag Feb 1882 p362. CAPTION: Fig. 6-10: United States Life-Saving Station on the Eastern Coast. Harper's New Monthly Magazine. February 1882, 362] Six more stations, reaching south to Cape Lookout, were added in the 1880s. [ILLUSTRATION: Life-saving stations built 1880-1888 Mobley p 100; CAPTION: Fig. 6-11: Outer Banks Life-Saving Stations Built 1880-1888. Mobley, Ship Ashore!: The U. S. Lifesavers of Coastal North Carolina (1994), 100.] [ILLUSTRATION: Life-Saving Station on the NC Beach Harper's New Monthly Mag Feb 1882 p371.bmp. CAPTION: Fig. 6-12: Life-saving station on the North Carolina beach (no specific location given). Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, February 1882, 371.] By 1905, twenty-nine life-saving stations on the North Carolina coast stretched from Deals Island near the Virginia line to Cape Fear and Oak Island south of Wilmington.

As a result of Kimball’s diligent and persistent efforts, the life-saving enterprise was on a more solid footing than it had ever been. Year after year, he argued for increased pay and a retirement and disability system for his men. The former was granted slowly and modestly; the latter never was forthcoming. Thus working for the Life-Saving Service remained grueling, dangerous, and poorly paid. Surfmen earned $50 per month in 1871; they got a $10 per month raise in 1882, but no more for the next twenty-five years. They received no housing allowance, even when posted to remote stations. Some constructed their own modest houses near the station; failing that, they frequently had to travel long distances home for visits. If they managed to bring their families to live with them at some of the more remote stations, they would likely lack medical care and perhaps schooling for their children.⁴⁷

Some surfmen tried to augment income by off-season fishing or farming, but after the active Life-Saving Service season was lengthened in 1884 (August 1 to June 1), fishing was no longer possible. Work days and weeks were long, and playing checkers and cards could relieve only so much of the tedium.⁴⁸

Keepers were treated somewhat better, but not a great deal. They were paid only $200 per year in 1876; by 1892 they were making $900 per year – approximately twice as much as a $60 per month surfman (who worked only part of the year). They were allowed to live with their families in the station, however. Some keepers’ tendency to treat their crews “with all the authority of an oldtime sailing ship captain” could lead to tension and conflict among the surfmen, whose working lives were already difficult.

It is therefore somewhat surprising that it was not uncommon for several generations of families – such as the Greys, Stowes, Ethridges, Scarboroughs, and Midgetts in North Carolina –to remain in the Life-Saving Service.⁴⁹ As conditions changed over the years, however, more and more left. In the absence of pay increases, some surfmen found that they could fish for part of the year, work in the growing coastal tourist trade during the remaining months, and still make more money than the U. S. Life-Saving Service paid them for far more arduous and dangerous work.⁵⁰ [ILLUSTRATION: Life-saving stations and lthouses map EncycNC p674.jpg. CAPTION: Fig. 6-13: Distribution of life-saving stations on the North Carolina coast, 1905. Powell (ed.), Encyclopedia of North Carolina, 674. Map by Mark Anderson Moore.]

After the turn of the century, some administrative and technological innovations further improved the Service nationwide. Lyle guns for propelling rescue lines to be thrown further and more accurately appeared in 1878; new beach carts and horses and ponies to pull them decreased response time.⁵¹ [ILLUSTRATION: Lyle gun drawing g20.tif. CAPTION: Fig. 6-14: Lyle gun for propelling rescue lines. Southeast Regional Office archive, National Park Service.] Now better equipped and staffed with better trained crews, the Service in North Carolina showed outstanding courage in responding to the wreck of the British steamship Virginia (2 May 1900) and the 577-ton barkentine Olive Thurlow (1902). From the Portugese barkentine Vera Cruz VII (8 May 1903) they rescued approximately 400 passengers and crew – the largest number ever from a single vessel.⁵²

New gasoline powered surfboats and lifeboats also boosted crews’ speed and efficiency.⁵³ The American Motor Company introduced the first outboard motor as early as 1896, but they did not become reliable until 1905. The keeper of the Portsmouth Life-Saving Station had already bought a powered boat by 1904, however, as had some of his crew, who used them to avoid being isolated during the active season. The Cape Lookout station received a powered boat in the fall of 1909, but the Portsmouth station did not get one until more than two years later.⁵⁴ [ILLUSTRATION: Motor lifeboat 1908 f352.tif. CAPTION: Fig. 6-15: Motor lifeboat, 1908. Southeast Regional Office archive, National Park Service.]

The advent of ship-to-shore radio in 1916 also aided life-saving efforts and reduced both the frequency of shipwrecks and the loss of life. Marconi had received a patent for wireless telegraphy in 1896. The first ship-to-shore message in U.S. history had been sent in 1899, and by 1905 the Japanese ships at sea were communicating with each other by radio.⁵⁵

During its relatively short independent life, the service left an indelible imprint on the southern Banks. In an economy in which regular salaried jobs were rare, it provided reliable income for several generations of Outer Banks families; its grounds and buildings were stabilizing icons; its crews and keepers were important anchors of social networks.⁵⁶

In a coastal county like Carteret, which in 1890 had only a few more than 2,200 adult male residents, the Life-Saving Service did not have to provide large numbers of jobs to have a significant impact upon employment.⁵⁷ In her historic resource study of Portsmouth, Sarah Olson notes that “From the late 19th century to well into the 20th century, Portsmouth's livelihood was linked to the U .S. lifesaving station, and most of the inhabitants were directly or indirectly associated with it.”⁵⁸

It appears likely, then, that the twenty or so jobs provided by the stations at Portsmouth, Core Banks, and Cape Lookout might have supported more than a hundred people.⁵⁹ And since the population of Portsmouth itself was only slightly more than 200 at the time, the local impact of six to thirteen regular jobs would have been considerable, both economically and socially.⁶⁰ “The keepers of the Portsmouth station, like the keepers of many other lifesaving stations,” a prior scholar has noted, “were respected members of the community. One member of the crew at Portsmouth in 1899 reflected that not only was his superior F. G. Terrell looked up to by the entire station crew, but that even the community at large looked on him as President.”⁶¹ [ILLUSTRATION: Portsmouth LSS crew ca 1920s a05.tif. CAPTION: Fig. 6-16: Portsmouth Life-Saving Crew in the 1920s. Cape Lookout National Seashore archive.]

The iconic physical facilities of the Life-Saving Service (and subsequent entities) were familiar to the entire population of the Outer Banks. Long after the organizations they housed were phased out, many of the core buildings and related outbuildings remained – frequently moved and adapted to other uses. At length they came to constitute a major part of the historic resources of Cape Lookout National Seashore. In not a few cases, private residences constructed or occupied by keepers or crew members (such as the 1910 McWilliams-Dixon house in Portsmouth) augmented the official landscape.⁶²

The Cape Lookout station, about a mile and a half southwest of the lighthouse, opened in early 1888 and was manned by a keeper and a crew of seven. The main building is a two- story, 22 x 45-foot (2000+ square feet), cross-gabled, wood- framed structure built on low wooden piers. A rear porch was added before 1905; a two- story front porch followed in the 1920s. Some interior alterations and three dormers brought it to its final configuration.⁶³ A new boat house was added in 1892, and other outbuildings were added during the next four years.⁶⁴

Summarizing the building’s iconic and historical importance, architectural historian Tommy Jones notes that the station “is one of three nineteenth-century buildings that remain in the Cape Lookout Village Historic District and it has played a major role in the history of Cape Lookout.” During the thirty years before it was replaced in 1917, Jones says, “the station remained a landmark, a source of shelter during storms and of assistance during all kinds of emergencies.” [ILLUSTRATION: CALOLifeSavingSta dwg1 CALO_623_60026[280699]; CAPTION: Fig. 6-17: Drawing of Cape Lookout Life-Saving Station. National Park Service, Denver Service Center.] [ILLUSTRATION (photo): CALO LSS 1893 from BoatHouseHSR; CAPTION: Fig. 6-18: Cape Lookout Life-Saving Station, 1893. Jones, Life-Saving Station Boat House Historic Structure Report, 10. Cape Lookout National Seashore archive.]

The station’s post-1917 history is an excellent example of the serial adaptive reuse of such structures: In 1919 it became a radio compass station for the Navy, and from 1921 until 1939 it housed a Navy radio station, when it passed to the Coast Guard, which used it until 1957. It was then sold for use as a private residence.⁶⁵

The Portsmouth station, established in 1893 (five years later than the Cape Lookout one) on the already Federally owned grounds of the old Marine Hospital, was apparently intended to occupy the hospital building.⁶⁶ But that building burned down (possibly at the hand of local arsonists – perhaps economically savvy, however legally misguided – in order to force the building of a new facility) before it could be occupied.⁶⁷

In any case, a new building designed in the Rhode Island-derived Quonchontaug style of architect George R. Tolman was constructed in 1894.⁶⁸ It was the largest building ever constructed in Portsmouth, and as Tommy Jones notes, it has remained a landmark on the island for over a century, and “the best- preserved example of some twenty- one "Quonochontuag" stations that the Life- Saving Service built along the eastern seaboard between 1891 and 1904.^”69 [ILLUSTRATION: Portsmouth LS sta ca 1903-15 Portsmouth CLR Photo 4-44A p 179; CAPTION: Fig. 6-19: Portsmouth Life-Saving Station, ca. 1903-1915. Cape Lookout National Seashore archive.] It eventually had several associated outbuildings (including a kitchen, stables, oil and coal storage building, and warehouses).⁷⁰ [ILLUSTRATION: Portsmouth LS sta 1920s Portsmouth CLR Photo 4-38A p 173; CAPTION: Fig. 6-20: Portsmouth Life-Saving Station in the 1920s. Cape Lookout National Seashore archive. ]

Like many other life-saving stations, the Portsmouth station was used briefly during the Spanish-American war to provide coastal watch for the Navy, but no sightings of the Spanish fleet occurred.⁷¹ In 1937, the Coast Guard decommissioned the Portsmouth station and then re-activated it briefly during World War II, during which it underwent major rehabilitation by the Navy, including the addition of a detached kitchen. It was used as a hunting club after the war before being returned to government ownership when Cape Lookout National Seashore was authorized in 1966. A recent renovation resulted in the full restoration of the building. [ILLUSTRATION: Portsmouth LS sta 2006 Portsmouth CLR Photo 4-44B p 179; CAPTION: Fig. 6-21: Portsmouth Life-Saving Station after renovation, 2006. Cape Lookout National Seashore archive.]

Over the more than four decades of its life, the U.S. Life-Saving Service worked in a constantly changing environment that predicted its demise. The number of lighthouses in the country (thus the navigational precision of ship’s captains) increased from 333 in 1852 to 1462 in 1913. Sails were increasingly replaced by engines, and wooden ships by steel. Ships were thus far stronger and far less at the mercy of the winds. The higher speed of gasoline patrol and surfboats allowed fewer stations to serve larger areas.⁷²

In sum, the Life-Saving Service provided the public a more than acceptable return on its never more than modest and inconsistent investment: more than 28,000 ships and upwards 180,000 people had benefitted from its services. ⁷³ In the years leading up to World War I, however, it became increasingly clear that a more consistent, substantial, and professional service was called for. The existence of the Life-Saving Service as a separate entity ended in January 1915, when it was merged into the newly formed United States Coast Guard. The Cape Lookout Life-Saving station became Coast Guard Station #190 (technically a “lifeboat station”).⁷⁴ Freddie Gilkin, who had become keeper of the Life-Saving Service station only a few months earlier, remained to head the Coast Guard Station.⁷⁵

The still unwritten part of Life-Saving Service history concerns the role of women. No women were employed by the Service, but many participated in its work in vital and sometimes even heroic ways.⁷⁶ The indefatigable young Martha Coston, widowed at twenty-one when her inventor husband died after inhaling chemical fumes, finished his work on the Coston Night Signals which became ubiquitous in the Service. As early as 1880, the Women’s National Relief Association was providing supplies (especially clothing and blankets) to life-saving stations for shipwreck survivors. Other women built fires on the beach to guide and warm surfmen during rescues, helped to launch boats and in dire circumstances rode in them to assist surfmen, and cared for their husbands and children while living at sometimes isolated stations.