1894
Photograph by James S. Casey
Museum Collection. Donated by Polly Edmonds

In response to nautical disasters in the region, including the wreck of the Steamer Atlantic in 1846, the US Congress funded the construction in 1849 of a chain of life-saving stations along the coast of New Jersey and Long Island, including one at Race Point. These simple structures were typically equipped with lanterns, a lifeboat, a metallic “life-car” (seen outside door), and mortars to fire lifelines.

Illustration from Harper’s Weekly
January 22, 1859
Museum Collection

At 3:45 a.m. on January 3, 1859, the steamship Vanderbilt struck treacherous Race Point and “became fast.” All 100 people aboard were transferred to shore through heavy surf by lifeboat. They found shelter in the unmanned life-saving station at Fishers Island’s western tip. The passengers and crew spent the next day and night huddled inside holding prayer meetings, celebrating their escape, and awaiting rescue. After local farmers successfully arranged transportation to the mainland, the group left their primitive “relief house.”

Illustration from Harper’s Weekly
January 22, 1859
Museum Collection

Stranded passengers and crew tramped across the Island to board a hired schooner in Great Harbor (West Harbor) bound for New London. The Vanderbilt, initially predicted to be a total loss, was successfully floated off and repaired at a cost of $80,000.

1911
© Mystic Seaport Collection, Mystic, CT

Merritt and Chapman, two independent wrecking and salvage powerhouses on the east coast, merged in 1897 to form the Merritt & Chapman Derrick and Wrecking Co. This New York-based company frequently competed with New London’s T.A. Scott Co. for local wrecking jobs. In 1922, T.A. Scott Co. merged with its rivals, forming the giant concern that was renamed the Merritt, Chapman & Scott Co.

June 1895
Photograph by James S. Casey
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

When the 250-foot Portuguese steamer Olinda plowed into Fishers Island’s south shore on June 11, 1895, she was the largest steamer ever to run aground in this vicinity. Initially stable in moderate weather, she attracted thousands of tourists who boarded her from excursion boats and purchased discounted wine by the bottle from stranded crew. Despite this diversionary merriment, almost all of the cargo was saved, including 2,000 bales of cork wood, 800 empty petroleum barrels, nineteen bags of cocoa, and one case of perfumery.

July 1895
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

By late June, large waves were breaking over the wreck and Capt. Thomas A. Scott, the wrecker in charge of the salvage attempt, was forced to abandon all efforts to pull her off the rocks. She broke in two during mid-September storms.

c. August 1, 1896
Courtesy of Paul Morris

Laden with sardines, the 147-foot Tillie (center background) stove in her hull on rocks mere yards from the protruding bow of the sunken steamer Olinda. A wrecking barge is featured at left. The Tillie was successfully hauled off by the Merritt Wrecking Company. Please note that the vessel was renamed on this photo by someone with a juvenile sense of humor.

Note that the S.S. Olinda is in two sections in center and right foreground with her sunken bow protruding at right. The wreck is still visited by scuba divers today, but her steel hull has broken up and has been largely dispersed by more than 100 years of tides and storms.

c.1900
Museum Collection

The circumstances and date of this nautical accident are unknown, but the distinguished military record of the USS Hartford is well chronicled; she was the flagship of Flag Officer (later Admiral) David G. Farragut, who reportedly shouted “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” while lashed to her masts during the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864.

This photograph indicates that the vessel once celebrated for moving ahead against all odds met its match in the Race. The Hartford was launched in 1858, rebuilt in 1899, and measured 305 feet in overall length.

May 29, 1898
Courtesy of Paul Morris

After hitting Cormorant Reef in Fishers Island Sound, the steamboat City of Worcester attempted to limp into New London Harbor but sank short of her goal. After the passengers were rescued, T.A. Scott Company crews began to pump her out. She was refloated within the week.

c.1920
Courtesy of Paul Morris

These ship names bear memorial witness to the countless wrecks serviced by the T.A. Scott Co. His wrecking vessels were often first on the scene when marine disasters occurred in this region.

c.1910s
Courtesy of Paul Morris

April 1911
Museum Collection

On the night of March 30, 1911, the 121-foot tug Shawanese with three barges in tow hit hard on Fishers Island’s coast 1/8th mile east of Silver Eel Pond. Wreckers from T.A. Scott Co. succeeded in floating the barges, but due to rough seas, it took more than a week to raise the 199-ton tug.

March 30-April 8, 1911
© Mystic Seaport Collection, Mystic, CT

The T.A. Scott Co. hired Merritt & Chapman’s huge floating derrick Monarch (at right) to lift the Shawanese after hard hat divers successfully encircled her stricken hull with heavy chains.

c.1910s
Courtesy of Paul Morris

The Relief, a 184-foot deep-sea rescue steamer, was launched in 1907 at Wilmington, Delaware, for the Merritt & Chapman Wrecking and Derrick Co. A frequent participant in salvage work in our waters, she hauled the 371-foot freighter City of St. Louis off the rocks on Wilderness Point in the mid-1930s.

Note the galloping black horse on the stack. This symbol was long associated with Captain Merritt and became the house flag of Merritt & Chapman after their merger in 1897.

August 21, 1914
Photograph by Edward Quimby
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

The Schooner Flora Condon drifted onto rocks at Isabella Beach and stranded with no hope of getting off with the tide. The 109-foot T.A. Scott wrecking steamer Tasco pulled the schooner afloat and took her under tow to New London. The charge: $300.00.

July 19, 1916
Museum Collection. Donated by Bunty Armstrong

Fog was blamed for the accident that put the Warrior ashore 1000-feet west of Silver Eel Pond. She was cruising at 12 knots when she crashed into large boulders. The Day reported, “Wireless calls of distress were sent out by the yacht’s operator. They were answered by a fleet of tugs and wrecking apparatus…” She was pulled free on high tide by tugs Harriet, Westerly, Paul Jones, and mine planter General S. M. Mills.

July 19, 1916
© Mystic Seaport Collection, Mystic, CT

Built for F.W. Vanderbilt, the Warrior had recently been purchased by Mr. Alexander S. Cochran, who was on board with members of the von Stade and Hitchcock families at the time of the accident. All escaped injury and were carried by launch to New London.

The Evening Telegram article reported that the Warrior was one of the New York Yacht Club’s largest yachts. “She was built at Troon, Scotland, and was launched in 1904. She is 282-feet long, 32 feet beam and has a draft of 14.3 feet. She has two decks and is built of steel.”

c.1917
Courtesy of Paul Morris

This unusual group portrait features 21 divers of the Merritt & Chapman Derrick & Wrecking Co. posing on the deck of the derrick barge Monarch. These faceless heroes were expected to perform complex underwater explorations and engineering feats in all types of weather.

c.1910
Photograph by Lawrence D. Goodell
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

c.1910
Photograph by Lawrence D. Goodell.
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

The crew of the Fishers Island Life-Saving Station first reported for duty on Thanksgiving Day, 1904, the 58th anniversary of the wreck of the Steamer Atlantic. New London’s The Day stated that “had a life saving station been established like the one at the present time…every life on the ill-fated steamer would have been saved.”

c.1913
Photograph by Brown & Dawson
Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

c.1908
Photograph by Lawrence D, Goodell. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

The Life-Saving Station was purposefully built on the narrow neck of the island to allow surfmen access to both the north and south shores. The secondary boat house shown here was located on the eastern section of what is today Club Beach.

c.1910s
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

At night and in bad weather, the surfmen of the Life-Saving Station patrolled assigned sections of the north and south shores of Fishers Island carrying a patrol clock. At the end of the route there was a post with a patrol-clock key attached. By turning the key in his patrol clock, a surfman was able to prove that he had covered his assigned territory within a specific timeframe.

This surfman is carrying a Costan signal around his neck. Similar to flares, they were used to signal stranded or wrecked vessels and to warn ships from straying too close to shore.

c.1915
Museum Collection

Part of the crew’s weekly routine was to practice launching and landing their surf boats. To simulate emergency conditions, they capsized the boats intentionally and then righted them. It was difficult and dangerous work. Surfman Howard B. Pollard died while launching a surfboat on Fishers Island on May 24, 1929.

c.1910
Museum Collection. Donated by Jim Righter

The Dobbins lifeboat seen here weighed approximately 1,800 pounds, was approximately 27-feet in length, and, according to a promotional catalogue, was “strong, portable, self-righting and self-bailing, and literally unsinkable.”

c.1910s
Photograph by Lawrence D. Goodell
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

One day each week the crew practiced and drilled with their beach equipment. In this photo they are firing a heavy line to a simulated wreck with a Lyle Gun. The target is the practice pole in the background which is designed to look like a mast.

c.1910s
Photograph by Lawrence D. Goodell
Museum Collection. Donated by Pierce Rafferty

At this stage of the drill, the line shot to the “wreck” by the Lyle gun has been attached to the “mast” and the crew is racing back into position to haul the man to shore in a breeches buoy, which has been aptly described as “a life preserver ring with canvas pants attached.” The rescued man can be seen dangling from the ropes in left center background.

The crews practiced these drills relentlessly. During inspections, failure to perform within proscribed time limits was grounds for dismissal.

c.1920
Museum Collection. Donated by Tim and Sharon Patterson

circa April 29, 1923
Museum Collection

The 157-ton steam yacht Thelma Phoebe came ashore on April 29, 1923, in the midst of a classic sou’easter. Seven members of the crew reached the beach on a life raft, but the black cook, Isaac Roberts, drowned in the surf and is buried on the island in an unmarked grave at St. John’s Cemetery No.1.

circa May 2, 1923
Courtesy of Bob Brooks

The Thelma Phoebe carried 2,400 cases of prohibition-era Scotch that quickly drew the attention of hundreds of island residents, soldiers from Fort Wright, and the authorities. Coast Guard and Customs agents managed to secure hundreds of the cases, but countless bottles and cases were “rescued” by islanders from the surf and the shoreline immediately after the wreck.

circa May 1, 1923
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

Coast Guard surfmen and U.S. Custom officials guarded the wrecked rumrunner day and night for over three weeks to keep the citizens of Fishers Island and the soldiers of Fort H.G. Wright at bay until the valuable cargo was completely unloaded and the surrounding area was cleared of stray cases and bottles. On several occasions, armed guards were forced to brandish weapons to dissuade those wishing to seize the liquor.

Postcard courtesy of the New London Maritime Society

The seized alcohol from the Thelma Phoebe was stored at the Custom House on Bank Street in New London. Eventually, after a legal hearing, all the confiscated alcohol was released back to representatives of the ship owner because the British-registered ship had papers documenting a route between Nassau and Halifax, two British ports where the import and export of alcohol was legal. The disposition of the balance of cases remains an island mystery. Some were lost to the sea, but a great number “disappeared” on island.

May 31, 1932
Museum Collection. Donated by Richard Baker

Early on the morning of May 31, 1932, the Bali, out of Bridgeport, Conn. went hard aground on Fishers Island at the western end of Chocomount Beach. A search of the vessel by Coast Guard surfmen turned up seven sacks, each containing 24 pints of liquor. An additional 109 sacks were later located in the waters alongside the vessel. The three crew members, who refused to give their names, were taken by Coast Guard patrol boat to New London for further interrogation.

circa March 19, 1925
Museum Collection. Donated by Paul Bates

Early on the morning of March 19, 1925, the motor boat Barbara ran ashore on the rocks west of Chocomount Beach. She was carrying 243 cases of whiskey. The Coast Guard log reveals “it was necessary to have a strong guard through the night to prevent soldiers from Fort Wright from boarding the vessel.” Those who arrived were kept away from the whiskey by a “show of arms.”

The vessel was a total loss, but a wrecking company salvaged the engine after two days of difficult work in the heavy surf.

1925
1st & 4th image, Museum Collection
2nd image, Courtesy of Helen Best family
3rd image, Courtesy of M.L. Gaillard

The Noank-built fishing schooner Viking was bound for New York from New Bedford filled with 15,000 pounds of flounder when she went ashore just west of Isabella Beach in a heavy fog on March 18, 1925. The severely damaged vessel was abandoned to the elements with only the engine saved. The beach where the wreck occurred is still sometimes referred to as “Viking Beach.”

March 26, 1936
Courtesy of N.Y. Daily News

This 414-foot freighter was laden with 450,000 feet of lumber when she piled onto Race Rock in a thick fog, almost broadsiding Race Rock Light. After a series of failed attempts to float her, enough cargo was unloaded that five rescue vessels working together succeeded in dragging her off the rocky ledge as she churned her powerful engines in reverse.

April 13, 1938
Photograph by Adelard T. LeGere
Museum Collection

After plowing into the south shore of Fishers Island in a thick fog on April 13, 1938, the 371-foot Steamer City of St. Louis (Savannah Line), remained stuck on the rocks of Wilderness Point for nine days. She was reported to be leaking badly “fore and aft.”

April 13, 1938
Courtesy of N.Y. Daily News

The Day reported that “blasts from the steamer’s whistle as she went aground brought many Fishers Island residents to the scene as sightseers.” One group of voyeurs is standing on the hill overlooking the stranded vessel. Please note the Porter residence at top center, and Wilderness Dairy at top left. Note also the narrow road that used to traverse the bluff’s edge along the south shore in this section of the island.

April 20, 1938
Museum Collection

While the City of St. Louis was stuck on the rocks, water was pumped from the holds, much of the cargo was removed, and the hull was patched. At 1:30 a.m. on April 22nd, the Merritt, Chapman & Scott rescue vessel Relief succeeded in pulling the steamer off the rocks.

August 19, 1937
Museum Collection. US Coast Guard Photograph
Donated by Pierce Rafferty

December 12, 1937
Museum Collection. US Coast Guard Photograph
Donated by Pierce Rafferty

February 2, 1938
Museum Collection. US Coast Guard Photograph
Donated by Pierce Rafferty

February 2, 1938
Museum Collection. US Coast Guard Photograph
Donated by Pierce Rafferty

February 2, 1938
Museum Collection. US Coast Guard Photograph
Donated by Pierce Rafferty

c.1937
Courtesy of Harry and Sandy Hurlburt

September 22, 1938
Photograph by Adelard T. LeGere
Museum Collection. Donated by Alexander Gaston

Taken the day after the 1938 Hurricane, this photograph shows a motor vessel owned by the Lamborn family perched almost comically on the yacht club dock. During the storm, the boat had floated up to the top of the dock and remained stranded there after the tidal surge receded.

circa September 22, 1938
Museum Collection. Donated by Polly Edmonds

The Hawk was owned by Alfred L. Ferguson Sr.

September 1938
Museum Collection

Unlike dozens of Fishers Island Yacht Club motor and sailing vessels damaged or destroyed by the 1938 Hurricane, the Hawk was successfully restored.

September 22, 1938
Museum Collection. 2013 Acquisition

This photograph, taken the day after the 1938 Hurricane, documents the stranded state of the legendary 64-foot auxiliary schooner Barlovento, owned by Pierre duPont III.

circa late September 1938
Museum Collection

September 22, 1938
Photograph by Adelard T. LeGere
Museum Collection. Donated by Jim and Diane Baker

This boat, with sailors still on board, was deposited just south of the Balloon Hangar, east of the Parade Grounds, Fort H.G. Wright. Note on reverse in ink: “This boat was in the water & landed on Ft. Wright field.” Luckily there were no known serious injuries.

September 21, 1939
Museum Collection. Donated by Harry and Susie Ferguson

When the tidal surge swept over the western end of the Big Club’s golf course, it submerged the 1st, 2nd, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th holes, amongst others. The wind-driven sea flowed into East Harbor on both sides of the Coast Guard Station, creating a new island that held only the Coast Guard Station and its Boat House (seen here).

Museum Collection. US Coast Guard Photograph

By the mid-1950s the Coast Guard had abandoned plans to rebuild a station at East Harbor and had chosen a new site near Silver Eel Cove at Fishers Island’s west end.

c.1948
Museum Collection. Donated by Tom Baker

This building (later the Ferry Annex and then Lighthouse Works) functioned from 1941 until 1949 as the Fort H.G. Wright firehouse. It was put on caretaker status in 1949 after the fort was shuttered. In 1956 it reopened as a Coast Guard Station.

c.1956
Museum Collection. US Coast Guard Photograph

In 1956, the Coast Guard finally abandoned their aging wooden station on East Harbor and established their new station in the former Fort Wright firehouse overlooking Silver Eel Cove. After months of remodeling, the former firehouse was officially commissioned on October 26, 1956.

Please note the former Fort Wright jail at left that was razed in 1975.

c.1980s
US Coast Guard Photograph. Museum Collection

Beginning in 1975, the Coast Guard began operating seasonally on Fishers Island, abandoning the post each fall and returning in the spring. During this transition period, the Coast Guard moved out of its permanent brick station house into a temporary trailer on the adjacent lot facing Silver Eel Cove. (The exact date for the abandonment of the permanent station house has not been determined.)

Circa late 1970s
US Coast Guard Photograph. Museum Collection

September 10, 2013
Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Jetta Disco
U.S. Coast Guard District 1 PADET New York  

Circa 1990, the modular house seen here replaced the temporary trailer that had been utilized on the same site. The house became the Coast Guard’s seasonal (“small”) search and rescue post on Fishers Island, housing four-member crews on a rotating basis.