Vintage postcard titled "Surf Boat Drill." The reverse indicates "Gt. Photo only Copyrighted 1908, by H.I. Robbins, Boston". (courtesy of Orleans Historical Society)
"The Monomoy Disaster"
March, 1902
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the
dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho'
from out our bourne of Time and Place,
The flood may bear me far,
I hope
to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar."
You'll find the epitaph above on a white obelisk on the lawn of the Chatham Light and Coast Guard Station. It was erected one year after the March 1902 shipwreck in memory of those who perished in what would become known as "The Monomoy Disaster."
During that fateful March day, two schooners, The Wadena and the John C. Fitzpatrick, stranded on the Shovelful Shoals, less than a mile east of Monomoy Point. Crews from the Monomoy Station, one of the Cape's first life-saving stations, rescued all aboard without incident. However, over the next few days, the crews of both barges returned to work on board. They needed to lighten the barges, both carrying cargoes of coal, so that they could be refloated and salvaged.
On March 16 a terrible northeast gale tore across this area of the Coast . Captain Marshall Eldredge, keeper of the Monomoy Station, went outside to see how the barges were holding up. To his amazement, he saw a distress signal flying off the Wadena.
Rescue efforts began immediately. During the attempt Captain Eldredge, six crewmen of the Monomoy Station and five passengers aboard the ill-fated Wadena perished. Seth L. Ellis, one of the heroic surfman, was the sole survivor of this tragedy at sea.
The following is Ellis' account of the tragedy, excerpted from The Lifesavers of Cape Cod by J. W. Dalton, first published in the early 1900s. (Chatham Pr; ISBN: 0856990027). You can find this fascinating narrative at numerous Cape Cod booksellers or at on-line sites such as www.amazon.com.
On Tuesday, March 11, 1902, about one o'clock A.M. the schooner barge Wadena stranded during a northeast gale and heavy sea on the Shovelful Shoal, off the southern end of Monomoy Island. The barge remained on the shoal without showing any signs of going to pieces, and wreckers were engaged in lightening her cargo of coal. On the night of March 16 the weather became threatening, and all except five of the persons engaged in lightening the cargo were taken ashore from the barge....
...Later, Captain Eldredge received a message from Hyannis, inquiring whether everything was all right with the men aboard the barge. Up to this time no one at the station was aware that any persons had remained on the barge over night.
Upon the receipt of this inquiry Captain Eldredge, putting on his hip boots and oil clothes, set of for the end of the Point, where he could personally ascertain the conditions. Arriving there he found that the barge was flying a signal of distress. He at once telephoned me, as I was the No. 1 man at the station...
...As soon as we got alongside the barge a line was thrown aboard and quickly made fast by the persons on board. The persons on board the barge were all excited and wanted us to take them ashore as soon as we could. Captain Eldredge, without a moment's delay...directed them to get into the surf-boat.
...The seas were breaking heavily around the stern of the barge, and there was little room for operations in the smooth water, and the rail of the barge was twelve or thirteen feet above the surf-boat.
...In order to clear the line of breakers that extended from the stern of the barge so that we could lay a good course for the shore, a part of the surfmen were backing hard on the port oars, while the others gave way with full power on the starboard side. Before we could get the boat turned around a big wave struck us with fearful force, and quite a lot of water poured into the surf-boat.
...As soon as the water came into the boat, the rescued men jumped up, and becoming panic-stricken, threw their arms about the necks of the surfmen so that none of us could use our oars. The seas, one after another, struck us, and the boat, filling with water, turned bottom up throwing us all into the raging sea. The seas kept striking us after the boat upset, and we were soon in among the heaviest breakers. Twice we righted the boat, but the seas which struck her, before we could get into her, capsized her each time.
...Our strength was fast leaving us...the five men that we had taken off the barge were the first to be sent off the overturned boat and to perish before our eyes....
...All of us clung to the boat, giving each other all the encouragement that we could. Surfman Chase was the first one of our crew to perish, then Nickerson and Small were swept to death...Every sea which struck the boat swept completely over us, almost smothering us. Kendrick was the next one of our crew to perish, and poor Foye soon followed him...
...When I last saw our brave captain, he was drifting away from the boat, holding on to the spar and sail...Roger had lost his strength...feebly moaning, 'I have got to go,' he fell off the boat and sank beneath the waters."
"...By that time the overturned boat had drifted down over the shoals in the direction of the barge Fitzpatrick, which was also stranded on the shoals, and when I sighted the craft I waved my hand as a signal for help. I soon saw those on the barge fling a dory over the side into the water, but could see nothing more of the dory after that on account of the mist and high sea until it hove in sight with a man in it rowing towards me. The man in the dory was brave Captain Elmer F. Mayo. He ran the dory alongside of me, and with his help I got into the boat. I was so used up that I was speechless, and all that I could do was to knee l in the bottom of the boat and hold on to the thwarts. To land in the dory through the surf was a perilous undertaking, but Mayo, who is a skilled boatman, carefully picked his way over the rips and headed his little boat for the shore.
...As I have often said, 'If the persons we took off the barge had kept quiet as we told them to, all hand would have been landed in safety.'"
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