Show 4 i u N FV I 1 vy asyl N TIA AA ACH U at 1 t akay 0 PEP CY za b 0 lella COAS 00 CUSHING 11 14 1 0 MP ATTLIES 15 or TM li 14 1 4 4 F YOU run through the history of the united states life saving service ou will find that with the exception of occasional widely separated years the coast of massachusetts lays claim claici to more disasters than any stretch ot of seaboard within the scope of beach patrol A long island and new jersey not ex cepter this Is partly on ac count of the particularly heavy sea traffic in the vicinity but it Is chiefly due to cape cod it Is this crooked finger of land that has beckoned a thousand ships ships to their doom and which in the hollows of its dunes holds many a tragic story of lives snuffed out in desperate grapple with wave and wind the night of tuesday march 11 1902 was wild and storm strewn running up along the coast the oceangoing ocean going tug sweepstakes was mak ing bad weather with her tow of the two big barges wadena and john C fitzpatrick for hours the triple expansion engines of the tug had been churning her screw in the drift of the heavy head sea and shortly before daylight her captain discovered that she was making no head vay he ile then decided to lie to and while feel ILS ilg about for an anch orabe in the gloom the barges ran aground on the edge of shoal off the southern end of monomoy conomoy island massachusetts when daylight came the crew of the monomoy conomoy I 1 fe saving station boarded the barges but finding it impossible to float them on the flood tide took their crews ashore it was six days later that the disaster oc furred wreckers sent from boston were at work on the barges the tug peter smith was on the ground having replaced the sweepstakes on the night of the the weather thickened and a gale swept in from the sea the n passed without incident b but ut early on the morning of the keeper eldridge of the conomoy monomoy station received a telephone from the captain of the smith asking him if every ahing was as all right on the wadena this alarmed Pi Fl dridge as he did not know any one had been left on the barge all night he started at once tor or the point of the island three miles away to look took over the situation the wadena lay halt half a mile off shore from the point she seemed to be tiding easily on the bar but the distress was filing from her rigging this was a signal eld ridge could not ignore it was a terrific pull through the breakers that rolled in across the shoals to the wadena but the life savers accomplished it and put their boat under the lee of the barge at about noon keeper eldridge then directed the men to get into the surfboat and told thin that he would take them a hore here the rail of the big barge was a dozen feet from the water and it was here that the rouble began the men on the barge lowered themselves over side on a rope but as captain olsen a very large man was halfway down he lost his hold and fell on the second thwart of the lifeboat breaking it and making it impossible tor for the rowers to use it in addition the boat was crowded and the wind which had been momentarily increase ing was tumbling huge combers into the wind ward of the barge it was into this maelstrom of breakers that it was necessary for the handl handi capped crew of the life saving station to pull their overloaded boat and they made a swift and able attempt to accomplish it at the instant the starboard oarsmen were swinging the head of the life boat to meet ohp sea a giant comber lifted under the quieter and dashed a barrel of water that was the signal for a panic among the rescued men that before it subsided cost twelve lives the portuguese wreckers in a frenzy of tear fear stood up in the boat rocking it to and fro in their endeavors to escape the momentary inrush of water and though the lifesavers life savers fought to lorce force them into the bottom of the craft ants could not be done before the next shouldering wave caught the bow of the boat her broadside and turned her over then ensued a desperate struggle for life A hundred ards ard to leeward the breakers were smashing themselves into white foam on the bar there was just one chance in L i million that the boat could be righted before the sea carried her into them once she reached them it would be all over hampered by the wreckers the life savers fought desperately in those few minutes left before the combers should be reached three times they righted the boat and strove heroically to bail her but each time she was again over turned they were fighting the last tragic fight when they were swept into the smothering foam of the bar at that instant seven men including all from the wadena went to face their maker five of the hardiest of the life savers still clung to the capsized boat they were keeper eldridge and ellis kendrick foye and rogers by a superhuman effort kendrick crawled to the hot torn tom of the overturned craft but bu the next sea lad swept him to join the se seven who had gone a moment before foye was the next good by boys he gasped as a smother of foam took him that left ellis rogers and eldridge the keeper and eldridge was fast losing strength in a brief lull in the wash of the sea ellis crawled to the bottom of the boat below him a foot away was the keeper a friend since boy hood at the risk of his own life ellis dropped into the water again pushed eldridge up on the bottom with his last strength and again crawled out himself the next second a sea washed both off and the beeper keeper after losing and regaining his r 4 k r S 1 N 4 4 11 1 4 a k r r Is iz ON grasp on the gunwale several times disappeared in the maelstrom of water vater that left ellis and rogers a big and very strong man in this desperate moment rogers threw his ills arms around the other s neck in a death grip for moments while the sea battered and the foam strangled them they fought the last grim fight for life ellis to break the grip of his frenzied comrade rogars to retain it suddenly when it seemed that both must drown rogers strength left him hia ills arms relaxed his eyes glazed I 1 im in going be he gasped and sank A moment later the boat drifted inshore of the outer breakers and tor for a brief space was in smoother water ellis once more crawled out on the bottom and succeeded in pulling the center board out so that he could hold on to it and bet ter maintain his position now you will remember that at the time of the stranding of the wadena the john C fitz patrick her sister barge had also gone aground she had gone over the outer bar and was lying between it and the inner breakers on board her was capt elmer F mayo of chatham who was in charge of lightening her the fitzpatrick was so tar far away from the wadena that captain mayo and two other men who were with him did not see the life saving boat go out nor did they have any knowledge of the grim tragedy thai that was being enacted until glancing over the rail captain alavo saw an overturned lifeboat life boat with a single man clinging to it the capsized boat was some distance from the barge but mayo did not hesitate III get that fellow he announced on the deck of the fitzpatrick lay a small twelve toot foot dory the only boat aboard a totally unfit craft tor for the furious sea that was thundering across the shoals kicking off his boots mayo and the other men who begged him not to go as it would be certain death ran the dory I 1 how low the ca cannain lotain of the wrecking crew kept his fragile craft afloat those who watched him from the fitzpatrick could nover understand but ha he did keep her afloat and the set of the tide and the gale carried him down toward the capsized lifeboat life boat to which ellis clung now with the last of his ebb ng strength the lifesaver life saver said afterward that he saw a dory thrown over the side of the fitzpatrick as he drifted near her but that a moment later the scud and the spindrift were driven so thick and ceaselessly before his eyes that he saw nothing until suddenly out of the mist a tiny bobbing boat loomed a dozen feet away then the mccu pant of this boat shot her skillfully fully alongside the swamped life boat and the exhausted toppled into her mayo with tl e half conscious life saver lying limp in the bottom of the dory had kept his word lo 10 his mates on the fitzpatrick k necessarily the most thrilling stories of the coast watchers are those in which lobs loss of life is entailed and therefore in a measure they are accounts of the failures of the men of the ser v ice but they are stories of noble failures and behind some of them lie tragedies other than those of death perhaps one of the greatest of these Is woven about the career of captain david H atkins un til III november 30 1880 keeper of the peaked hill bar station cape cod this man had followed the sea from boyhood boy hood whaling fishing and coasting in 1872 he became keeper of the peaked hill bar station then came a wild day in april 1879 and as it appears in the chronicles of the department at washington a blot fell across the record of keeper atkins on this april day the schooner sarah J fort stranded near peaked hill bar A terrific sea coupled with an onshore hurricane and a temperature very low tor for the time of the year faced at kins and his crew as they discovered the schooner and took their apparatus to the beach without hesitation the keeper ordered the surf boat launched but the sea was so heavy that it was thrown back on the beach time and again in the twenty hours of watching and battling with the storm that followed the keeper led his men into the breakers with the boat but each time they were beaten back drenched with the winter sea which froze in their clothing cut and bruised from the buffeting t they ey received lec elved and the then says the e service report of the oc currence the last time the launch was attempted the boat was hurled high on the shore her crew were spilled out like matches from the box and the boat was shattered and captain atkins and his men having eaten nothing since the even ing before spent taint faint heartsick heart sick had been bat fled and had to endure the mortification of see ing a rescue effected by an un worn volunteer crew in a fresh boat brought from the town the investigation revealed that the men upon the wreck might have been properly landed by the lifelines life lines but tor for keeper atkins failure to employ the lyie lyle gun which had recently been furnished the station through a singular of its powers it was a bitter pill for the service the defeat of its men by a volunteer crew the night of november 30 1880 was clear but windy A heavy gale was piling the surf over the outer bar off the peaked hill bar station fisher and kelley left the station at four 0 clock to make the eastward and westward patrol kelley started from the door first As he did so he heard the of sails and the banging of blocks above the wind at the west ward he saw the lights of a vessel close inshore shouting to fisher to give the alarm he ran down the beach burning his coston light keep er atkins glanced at the surf and ordered out the boat the men dragged it eastward until they were opposite the stranded vessel which proved to be the sloop C E trumbull of rock port the crew manned the boat the story of what took place out there under the darkness on keeper atkins last errand of rescue Is best told perhaps in the personal ac count of isaiah young one of the survivors the narrative of this man in his own words Is taken from the life saving report of 1881 it reads when we launched the vessel was still some to the eastward we went off in this manner to take advantage of the tide that was running to the eastward between the bar and the shore it was low tide the sea was smooth on the shore but on the bar where the vessel lay it was rough enough to be dangerous we hauled up from the boat until the bow lapped on to her quarter keeper atkins called to them to jump in we landed tour four persons this trip could not have consumed more than fifteen minutes when we pulled up again after being thrown back taylor stood in the bow with the line ready to heave I 1 cautioned keeper atkens to have a care tor for the boom he said be ready with the boat hook 1 I will look out tor for the boom I 1 v was as just taking up the hook when a sea came around the stern threw the stern of 0 the boat more toward the boom as the vessel rolled to leeward and the boom went into the water As the vessel rolled to windward and the boom rose it cat caught under the cork belt near the stroke rowlock and threw us over bottom up we rolled the boat over right side up and I 1 was the first to get into her others got in I 1 am not positive how many she did not keep right side up more than two minutes when a sea rolled us over again we got on again and were washed off two or three thre e times before I 1 struck out tor for the shore I 1 asked mayo to strike with me as I 1 knew him to be an excellent swimmer but he said that we could not hold out to reach the shore and he would stay by the boat keeper atkins was holding by the boat kelley had already struck out I 1 heard baylot groan near me as I 1 started b it did not see him I 1 saw a gap in the beach which must haie hate been clara bel be 1 hollow two miles from station no 7 when about three seas from the shore my sight began to fail and soon I 1 could see noth ing but I 1 I 1 ept s dimming I 1 recollect cole saying for god a sake isaiah is this you youa and of his taking me up I 1 knew nothing more until I 1 found myself in the station after being resuscitated I 1 should think that I 1 remained by the boat halt half an hour before I 1 struck 0 it the cork belt was all that emblen me to reach the shore the cork belts in the boat are a good thing and should be kept on thus keeper atkins died with his boots on as he said he would die it if ne decesary necessary in the per firmance for mance of its I 1 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