THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 11, 1996 TAG: 9603090052
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
BECAUSE OF a white college student from Washington, N.C., and a black Coast Guard commander, seven heroes from the all-black Pea Island Lifesaving Station in North Carolina were posthumously awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal in Washington, D.C, last Tuesday - for saving the lives of nine persons aboard a sinking ship almost a century ago.
The presentation ceremony at the Navy Memorial in Washington was attended by Kate Burkart, now a student at Salem Academy in Winston-Salem and Stephen Rochon, a Coast Guard officer based in Baltimore.
For years, both had implored government officials to honor Capt. Richard Etheridge and the six crewmen from the station who risked their lives to save the nine people (including a woman and child) aboard the three-masted schooner E.S. Newman on Oct. 11, 1896.
Burkart's determination to gain recognition for the crew's exceptional valor began when she was an eighth-grader at P.S. Jones Middle School in Washington, N.C.
She lobbied Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and President Clinton on behalf of Etheridge and lifesavers Benjamin Bowser, Lewis Wescott, Dornman Pugh, Theodore Meekins, Stanley Wise and William Irving, members of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station.
From 1880 until World War II the Pea Island Station was the only all-black station in the history of the U.S. Lifesaving Service and its successor, the U.S. Coast Guard.
Established on Hatteras Island in the winter of 1878-79, the Pea Island station was originally manned by an all- white crew which failed to keep a proper lookout when a British bark went aground a short distance from the station. Nineteen sailors drowned attempting to swim to shore through a frenzy of wind and seething waves.
Soon afterward the negligent crew was replaced by what was then described as a ``colored'' crew. Until that time the Pea Island station had only hired black personnel to maintain the horses, stables, corrals, and boat trailers.
The new officer in charge was Richard Etheridge, a lean black man with a beard and and piercing eyes, who had been a fisherman before distinguishing himself as a good administrator, and a better leader of men, at the Oregon Inlet station.
If the former crew of the Pea Island Station had been slipshod in its approach to lifesaving, Etheridge was not.
Keeper Etheridge insisted on drills using lyle guns to fire line over the bows of imaginary ships, so that a breeches-buoy could be rigged. He was a stickler for proper dress and swift obedience to orders. His station quickly gained a reputation as one of the ``tautest'' on the Carolina coast.
Etheridge was particularly concerned with keeping a sharp lookout to sea in all kinds of weather, but particularly during storms. He and his men compiled an extraordinary record of rescues. From Nov. 30, 1879 through Jan. 20, 1915, 10 vessels were wrecked off the Pea Island coast. More than 600 persons were rescued from these vessels. Only 10 lives were lost.
The rescue for which Etheridge and six of his crew received the medals was a striking example of perseverance and bravery. The three-masted schooner E.S. Newman was sailing toward Norfolk from Stoningham, Conn., in October of 1896 when a ferocious storm pushed the vessel 100 miles to the south.
At 7 p.m. on Oct. 11, the schooner slammed onto the beach about two miles south of the Pea Island station. The storm was so turbulent that Etheridge was forced to suspend beach patrol because of the deep tongues of tide covering the beach. The storm-driven tide was so high that the entire island was inundated with water extending from sound to sea.
The Newman, her sails blown away by the storm, fired a flare signaling distress at about 9 p.m. By the time the vessel fired its second flare Etheridge had already put his men in motion.
Etheridge was later to write in his log: ``It seemed impossible under such circumstances to render any assistance. The tide was sweeping across the beach and the (mule) team was often brought to a standstill by the sweeping current.''
Nevertheless, Etheridge and his men sloughed through the swirling water in the darkness of night, breakers sloshing into their black boots as they made their way to a point directly opposite the vessel. There was so much water swirling around them no dry ground could be found from which a projectile carrying a line might be fired by their lyle gun to the ship.
The Newman was skippered by Capt. S.A. Gardiner who carried his wife and their 3-year-old child aboard what remained of the Newman's deck structure. Shouting into the wind thundering against his eardrums, Etheridge summoned two of his strongest surfmen to his side. Etheridge then tied the men together with ropes and, connected to the shore by long lines, they swam through the towering breakers, at last reaching the stricken ship, climbing a ladder on its side.
The child and his mother were rescued from the ship first. In all, Etheridge and his crew made 10 trips to effect the rescues, clinging to the line extending from ship to shore.
Etheridge was later to write in his journal about the arrival of the station's crewmen aboard the Newman: ``They greeted us with gladden hearts.''
The crew and the Newman survivors all reached the shelter and warmth of the station at one in the morning.
Given an opportunity to prove themselves, the black crew at Pea Island distinguished themselves with an exceptional esprit de corps that existed until closure of the station in 1947.
William Simmons of Manteo, who served at the Pea Island station in the 1920s told me during an interview in the 1970s that:
``We knew we were colored and, if you know what I mean, felt we had to do better whether anybody said so or not.''
Better, indeed. by CNB