750 



SERVICE, UNITED STATES LIFE-SAVING. 



it received from Congress an appropriation 

 of $10,000; in 1857, another of $10,000; and 

 again in 1870, one of $15,000. The extension 

 in 1872 of the Government life-saving service 

 to Cape Cod relieved the society of its onerous 

 charge in this region, and enabled it to de- 

 vote its main energies to the better protection 

 of other parts of the Massachusetts coast. The 

 society still continues its wardenship of such 

 localities, and has now 78 stations. No other 

 organized efforts, outside of those of the Gov- 

 ernment subsequently described, were made to 

 mitigate the distresses of shipwreck, beyond 

 those of three or four other societies, all ephem- 

 eral in their character, except the Life-saving 

 Benevolent Association of New York, char- 

 tered by the Legislature of that State in 1849, 

 which is still in existence, but whose operations 

 have been mainly exerted in other and limited 

 channels of benevolence. 



For nearly half a century the efforts of the 

 Government for the protection of navigators 

 upon our coasts were listless and occasional. 

 In 1807 an attempt was made to organize a na- 

 tional Coast Survey, which failed. The charts 

 and sailing directions used for the guidance 

 of mariners were for a long period of foreign 

 origin, and extremely untrustworthy. These 

 were superseded, however, by charts and a 

 "Coast Pilot" of great value, made by the 

 Messrs. Blunt from surveys of leading harbors 

 and the more frequented and perilous parts of 

 the Atlantic coast, undertaken at their own ex- 

 pense. In 1820 there were but 55 lighthouses, 

 all poorly built, mostly badly located, and fur- 

 nished with oil lamps of inferior illuminating 

 power. In 1832 the important step was taken 

 of establishing the Coast Survey, which at once 

 began its magnificently comprehensive labors 

 and the publication of complete and accurate 

 charts. About the same time the Engineer 

 Corps of the army began a similar survey of the 

 Great Lakes. The gathering movement in aid 

 of commerce extended to the lighthouse system, 

 which by 1837 had 208 fixed and floating lights 

 in operation. At the latter date Congress 

 passed an act authorizing suitable public ves- 

 sels to cruise upon the coast to assist shipping 

 in distress, and the revenue cutters were des- 

 ignated for this duty; an action which resulted 

 in as much benefit as could have been expected 

 from the limited number of vessels comprising 

 the fleet. No other measures in aid of the 

 mariner were taken till 1848, a date which 

 marks the inception of the Life-saving Service. 

 In August of that year a vigorous and graphic 

 appeal was made in the House of Representa- 

 tives by the lion. William A. Newell, of New 

 Jersey, which secured an appropriation of $10,- 

 000 for providing surf-boats and other appli- 

 ances for rescuing life and property from ship- 

 wreck on the coast of that State. With this 

 money eight buildings were erected at different 

 points, and furnished accordingly. An impor- 

 tant feature of these appointments was the 

 life-car, the invention of which is in dispute 



between Mr. Joseph Francis, of New Jersey, 

 then a boat-builder of the Novelty Iron Works 

 of New York, and Captain Douglas Ottinger, 

 an officer of the Revenue Marine, under whose 

 supervision the establishment of these stations 

 was effected. In March, 1849, Congress made 

 a further appropriation of $20,000 for life- 

 saving purposes. With half this sum eight 

 buildings were erected and furnished on the 

 coast of Long Island, under the supervision of 

 Mr. Edward Watts, a civil engineer, aided by a 

 committee of the before-mentioned New York 

 Life-saving Benevolent Association. The re- 

 mainder of the money was devoted to estab- 

 lishing six additional stations on the coast of 

 New Jersey, under the superintendence of 

 Lieutenant (now Captain) John McGowan, of 

 the Revenue Marine, assisted by a commit- 

 tee of the Philadelphia Board of Underwriters. 

 The same year, as before stated, an unex- 

 pended appropriation of $5,000, made two 

 years before, was allowed to be expended by 

 the Massachusetts Humane Society upon Cape 

 Cod, so that life-saving protection was extended 

 simultaneously to the coasts of Massachusetts, 

 New York, and New Jersey, thus inuring to 

 the benefit of the commerce of Boston, New 

 York, and Philadelphia. The newly estab- 

 lished stations, though manned upon occasion 

 only by extemporized crews, so proved their 

 value at several scenes of shipwreck that the 

 next year, 1850, Congress again appropriated 

 $20,000 for life-saving purposes. Half this sum 

 went to the establishment of additional stations 

 on the coast of Long Island, and one at Watch 

 Hill, Rhode Island, under the supervision of 

 Lieutenant Joseph Noyes, of the Revenue Ma- 

 rine, cooperated with by the New York Life- 

 saving Benevolent Association. The remaining 

 $10,000 was used in placing life-boats at differ- 

 ent points on the coasts of North and South 

 Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Texas, and shel- 

 tering them with boat-houses. The growing 

 interest in the protection of navigation was 

 strikingly shown two years later by the act of 

 Congress organizing the Lighthouse Board. 

 The system of lighting the coast had continued 

 to be imperfect, although the number of lights 

 had been increased to 320 a paltry number, 

 however, for the then second commercial nation 

 in the world; and all but seven of them were oil 

 lamps with common reflectors. But in 1852, 

 the date of the legal organization of the Board, 

 this service underwent a memorable transfor- 

 mation. A scientific programme for regularly 

 lighting the coast was adopted ; towers of ma- 

 sonry or iron, built by the highest engineering 

 skill, arose at selected points, crowned with the 

 splendid Fresnel lenses, whose drum of prisms 

 augments the light eightfold ; responsible keep- 

 ers were appointed, under inspection and disci- 

 pline, as wardens of these beacons; and the 

 work of development was begun which has re- 

 sulted in the establishment of 1,336 lights on the 

 seacoasts and the shores of the great Western 

 rivers, together with a large number of day- 



