Background
Flawed rescue
In 1879, the commander of the station (called a “keeper”) was a white man and he had a crew of both white and black men. A rescue effort in November 1879 was bungled, and the keeper and some of the crew were held responsible. The Revenue Cutter Service investigated the situation, fired the white keeper, and appointed in his place Richard Etheridge, one of the best surfmen on the North Carolina coast, to serve as keeper. Etheridge was a black man. This meant under the racial standards of the times that the entire life-saving crew under his command would have to be black, and Etheridge was ordered to hire an all-black crew, which he did. [Shanks, Ralph. York, Wick. and Lisa Shanks (Ed). "U. S. Life-Saving Service: Heroes, Rescues and Architecture of the Early Coast Guard". p. 131. Costaño Books. Petaluma, CA 1996 ISBN 0-930268-16-4]
African-American keeper and crew
For this reason, Pea Island Station came to be manned entirely by a black keeper and crew, although other black men had served as surfmen at both at Pea Island and other stations.[ [http://www.uscg.mil/history/h_Africanamericans.html “African Americans in the United States Coast Guard”] , United States Coast Guard. Accessed January 17, 2008. "Appointed Keeper of Pea Island Life-Saving Station on January 24, 1880, Richard Etheridge became the first African American keeper in the Service.... From the time of Etheridge’s assuming command in 1880, Pea Island was staffed by African Americans until the station was closed in 1947, after which the area became a wildlife refuge.... The second all-African-American station (Pea Island was the first) was organized at Tiana Beach, New York."] Richard Etheridge was the first African-American to hold the rank of keeper of a life-saving station. A short time after he was appointed, the station was burned, it was thought as a result of arson. [Shanks and York p. 131] ]Rescue of the "E.S. Newman"
The Pea Island life-saving crew became famous in a rescue of the crew of the schooner "E.S. Newman". The captain of the vessel had his wife and three-year old daughter on board when it was driven ashore during a hurricane on October 11, 1896. The storm was so bad that Keeper Etheridge had suspended beach patrols. Still, from the station, a surfman, Theodore Meekins, thought he saw a distress signal, and fired off a Coston flare to see if there would be a response. Meekins and Etheridge watched carefully, then saw the schooner acknowledge with a flare of her own. [ [http://www.lifesavingservice.org/accounts_newman.html U.S. Life-Saving Service.org, “Wreck of the E.S. Newman”] (accessed January 13, 2008)]
The Pea Island crew with the help of a mule team then pulled the beach card with the rescue equipment and surfboat along the beach towards where the distress signal had been seen. Huge waves washing ashore made this especially difficult. Finally, when the crew arrived at the scene of the wreck, they found that the wave conditions were so great that the surfboat could not be launched, nor could a breaches buoy be used because the beach was so inundated by waves that the anchor for the buoy line could not be placed in the sand. Two surfmen volunteered to swim out in the waves to attempt to reach the wreck. They eventually did reach the schooner and managed to heave a line aboard. Ten times the surfmen went into the water and one by one the passengers and crew were all rescued, starting with the captain’s three-year old daughter. [Shanks and York p. 131]
Later years
Pea Island continued to be manned by an all-black crew through the Second World War. After the war, the station was shut down. The last surviving man who served at the station during the Second World War, William Charles "Bill Charles" Bowser, died at age 91 on June 28, 2006. [ [https://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/651/129608/ USCG photo caption] (accessed July 06, 2008)] In 1996, the Coast Guard awarded the Gold Life-Saving Medal posthumously to the keeper and crew of the Pea Island station for the rescue of the people of the "E.S. Newman".
Notes
ee also
*Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station
*United States Life-Saving Service
External links
* [http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-cp/history/STATIONS/PEA%20ISLAND.html U.S. Coast Guard Historian's page on Pea Island Station, with photographs]
