Mr. Hawthorne and I traveled to Manteo
last Tuesday for our first class in a seafood series
at the North Carolina Aquarium.
This is where Andy Griffith lives -
beyond the gates at the end
of the crape myrtle-lined drive.
We got to the aquarium a bit early,
so I had a chance to wonder through
and shoot some more pictures.
I've never posted about
the Heroes of the Outer Banks -
The Pea Island Lifesavers.
My regular readers may recall a post I did
about the Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony.
And also here.
Back in the late 1800's,
some of Roanoke Island's black army veterans -
men whose families had lived in the Freedmen's Colony -
found jobs as surfmen in the United States Life Saving Service.
The Pea Island Station was one of seven stations
along North Carolina's coast.
Up until 1880, the black men served along side whites
at various stations along the coast
in integrated or "checkerboard" crews.
In 1880, the general superintendent of the US Life Saving Service,
Sumner Kimball, appointed Richard Etheridge keeper
of the Pea Island Station.
The Pea Island crew soon gained a reputation
for being the bravest life-saving crew on the Carolina coast.
Richard Etheridge was born a slave
on the Outer Banks of North Carolina,
property of John B. Etheridge.
Due to the non-existence of large plantations
on the Outer Banks, blacks were relatively few
and slavery limited.
Like most Outer Bankers, Etheridge learned to
work the sea, fishing, piloting boats, and combing the beach
for refuse from wrecks.
His master also taught him to read and right,
even though it was illegal to do so.
After fighting began between the states in 1861,
the Outer Banks was the site of one of the first
Northern invasions in February 1862
under General Ambrose Burnside.
Burnside, the Union commander, used black labor
to build fortifications for his armies
and Roanoke Island soon became a refugee camp
for fugitive slaves.
The Union recognized the potential that
the active recruitment of Southern blacks offered their forces -
not only by bolstering Union ranks but simultaneously
diminishing the labor supply of the opposition.
Black troops started enlisting in the summer of 1863
and Richard Etheridge joined the
36th United States Colored Troops.
The 36th distinguished itself in the
1864 Battle of New Market Heights, Va.,
overrunning Lee's position and
securing an important victory on the road
to taking the Confederate capital at Richmond.
Two days after the battle, Etheridge was promoted to sergeant.
Etheridge was also active in the behind-the-lines struggle
to end the mistreatment of blacks.
In 1865, Etheridge and William Benson
drafted the following letter to General Oliver Howard,
the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau,
protesting the treatment the blacks were suffering from
at the hands of the Union army:
"The white soldiers break into our houses act as they please
steal our chickens rob our gardens and if any one defends
their-Selves against them they are taken to the gard house
for it. so our familys have no protection when Mr. Streeter is here
to protect them and will not do it...
General we the soldiers of the 36th U.S. Co Troops
having familys at Roanoke Island humbly petition you
to favour us by removeing Mr Streeter the present Asst Supt
at Roanoke Island under Captn James."
Etheridge signed the letter, "in behalf of humanity."
In 1866, Etheridge left the service
and returned to the Outer Banks,
making his living fishing and serving in the newly-formed
Life Saving Service, first at Oregon Inlet in 1875,
then at Bodie Island.
The U.S. Life Saving Service was formed in 1871 to assure safe
passage of Americans and international shipping interests
and to save both lives and cargo.
Stations were located along the beaches of the
Outer Banks of North Carolina,
later known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic."
In the early years of the Life Saving Service,
many appointments were tainted by cronyism and nepotism.
In 1879, the keeper of Pea Island was a white man
who had a crew of both white and black men.
A series of highly publicized maritime disasters occured
off the North Carolina coast. In two months,
188 lives and more than half a million dollars in property
was lost off the Outer Banks,
within sight of and with little assistance from
the lifesavers on the shore.
It was reported in the New York World,
"It begins to be painfully clear that the terrible loss of Human life
on the North Carolina coast ... must be attributed directly to the
inefficiency of the Life Saving Service."
In November 1879, a rescue effort was bungled,
and the keeper and some of the crew were held responsible.
And investigation was conducted by the Revenue Cutter Service,
the white keeper was fired, and Richard Etheridge,
one of the best surfmen on the North Carolina coast,
was appointed keeper.
Etheridge was one of only eight blacks in the Life Saving Service
and he was promoted from the lowest ranking surfman
at Bodie Island station to take over the incompetently
run station at Pea Island.
The Life Saving Service recommended Etheridge
to the position, despite warnings from locals, writing:
"Richard Etheridge is 38 years of age, has the reputation of being as good a surfman as there is on this coast, black or white, can read and write intelligently, and bears a good name as a man among the men with whom he has associated during his life. I am fully convinced that the interests of the Life Saving Service here, in point of efficiency, will be greatly advanced by the appointment of this man to the Keepership of Station No. 17."
Richard Etheridge was the first African American
to hold the rank of keeper of a life saving station.
Under the racial standards of the times,
this meant the entire crew under his command
would have to be black.
Etheridge recruited, trained, and led
a crew of African Americans at Station 17,
the only all-black station in the nation.
Though civilian attitudes towards Etheridge and his men
ranged from curiosity to outrage,
the Pea Island crew figured among the
most courageous surfmen in the service,
performing many daring rescues from 1880
to the closing of the station in 1947.
The accomplishments of these brave men,
and others like them,
led to the formation of the United States Coast Guard.
Within 5 months after Etheridge took charge,
arsonists burned the station to the ground.
Knowing the scrutiny he was under and that the slightest error
could result in his or one of his crewmen's dismissal
and reinstatement of a white keeper and crew,
Etheridge ran the station with exacting preparation
and military ardor.
Etheridge's exceptional leadership skills, vigorous efforts,
rigorous training drills, and the crew's strong work ethic
paid off the night of October 11, 1896,
during a hurricane, when the schooner "E. S. Newman"
grounded south of the station.
The captain of the vessel had his wife and three-year old
child on board when it was driven ashore.
Beach patrols had been suspended due to the
ferocity of the storm, but Theodore Meekins, a surfman,
thought he saw a distress signal.
Meekins fired off a Coston flare and as
Etheridge and Meekins carefully watched,
the schooner acknowledged with a flare of its own.
With the help of a mule team, the Pea Island crew
pulled the wagon with rescue equipment and surfboat
towards where the distress signal had been seen,
the huge waves making this especially difficult.
Arriving at the scene of the wreck,
the wave conditions were so great that the surfboat
could not be launched. A breaches buoy could not be used
either because an anchor for the buoy line could not
be placed in the sand due to the relentless inundation of waves.
Two of the surfman volunteered to swim out
in an attempt to reach the wreck.
They eventually accomplished this and managed
to heave a line aboard. Nine times the surfmen
went into the water, and starting with the captain's child,
each and every passenger was rescued.
According to local lore, Meekins was reputedly the best
swimmer of the group and made every voyage out
to the Newman.
The Newman's captain searched for days
for the piece of the side which held the vessel's name.
He finally found it and donated it to the crew
as an offering of this thanks.
For 100 years, this would be the only award
the Pea Island crew would receive for their efforts.
The crew voted to give the wooden sideboard
to Theodore Meekins, the young surfman who
first spotted the distress signal and who swam
out numerous times to the vessel during the rescue.
Meekins nailed the board at the top of his barn
on his farm on Roanoke Island.
He served at Pea Island for 21 more years
until his death in 1917. While boating home on leave,
a storm came up at Oregon Inlet,
and, ironically, Meekins drowned
trying to swim to shore.
Etheridge served as Pea Island Keeper for twenty years.
At age 58, he fell ill and died at the station.
Pea Island continued to be manned by an all-black crew
through World War II.
After the war, in 1946, the station was decommissioned .
Its crews had saved more than 600 lives
and outperformed all other lifesaving stations.
In 1996, the Coast Guard awarded the
Gold Life-Saving Medal, the services highest peacetime honor,
posthumously to the keeper
and crew of the Pea Island Station for the rescue
of the people of the E. S. Newman.
It is interesting to note that it took the tenacity
of a 15 year-old middle school student from
Washington, N.C. to shed light
on the heroism and brave efforts
of the surfmen.
Kate Burkhart wrote an award-winning essay
about the Pea Island lifesavers,
then wrote to Senator Jesse Helms
to request they be honored.
She lobbied members of Congress
and President Clinton in a process that culminated in
the members of the Pea Island station
receiving their long-overdue gold medal
at a March 1996 Awards Ceremony in Washington, D.C.
Family members of the crew received certificates
and the last surviving surfman of the Pea Island crew,
82 year old William Bowser was present,
in addition to the Commander of the Coast Guard
and Kate Burkhart.
Etheridge and his family are buried at
the Pea Island Life Saving Station memorial
on the grounds of the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island.
Here's an interesting trailer from a documentary
made about the Rescue Men of Pea Island.
This documentary is actually debuting tonight
at Roanoke Island Festival Park.
Now, I need to go to the
Museum in Manteo
honoring the Pea Island lifesavers.
And here's the N C Aquarium's
display about the Lifesavers of Pea Island.
Enjoy the videos.
The otters recognized Myrtle's voice and got all excited.
Shark tank:
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