SERVICE, UNITED STATES LIFE-SAVING. 



751 



marks, fog-signals, and buoys. The Coast Sur- 

 vey was also continuing its vast hydrographio 

 labors, extended to a study of the Gulf Stream 

 and its influences, and the laws and opera- 

 tions of tides, currents, winds, and storms, and 

 changes of the shore, and involving the copious 

 issue of the best possible charts and other pub- 

 lications of signal value to seafarers and mari- 

 time interests generally. It is possible that the 

 achievements of these two noble branches of 

 the public service, acting on the mind of the 

 nation, hail a reciprocal effect upon the for- 

 tunes of the nascent Life-saving Service ; for 

 in the years 1853 and 1854 Congress appropri- 

 ated $42,500 for its uses. With this 'money 

 fourteen new stations were added to thoso on 

 the New Jersey const, built under the care of 

 Mr. S. 0. Dunham, and eleven on the coast of 

 Long Island, under the supervision of Mr. J. 

 N. Schillenger. Twenty -three life-boats v/ere 

 also placed at points upon Lake Michigan, and 

 several others at various places on the Atlantic 

 and Lake coasts. Exclusive of the boats at the 

 55 stations on the New York and New Jersey 

 coasts, there were in 1854 eighty-two life-boats 

 at different localities elsewhere. 



The measures taken up to this time, although 

 dictated by frequent appalling catastrophes, had 

 nevertheless a certain indeterminate and grop- 

 ing character. The life-boats provided and 

 the stations established were doubtless of oc- 

 casional and even signal benefit, but the lack 

 of responsible custodians for these means and 

 appliances of relief rendered them in a great 

 degree nugatory. The boats in many cases were 

 appropriated to private uses or fell into dilapi- 

 dation. In some instances natural changes in the 

 beaches, wrought by winds and tides, made the 

 stations out of situation for use, and the ravages 

 of timeand weatherhad told upon themall, while 

 their equipments became diminished by pillage 

 or worthless by decay. Heart-rending scones 

 of disaster occurred where, either through the 

 paucity of the stations or the time-eaten char- 

 acter of the appliances at hand, succor was 

 impossible. By 1854 the inefficiency of these 

 means, emphasized by frequent calamity, had 

 become glaring. Public sentiment now ex- 

 cited Congress toward action. A bill for the 

 increase and repair of the stations and the 

 guardianship of the life-boats, passed by the 

 Senate in 1853, had failed to reach the House 

 before its adjournment. A frightful disaster 

 on the New Jersey coast, the wreck of the 

 Powhatan, involving the loss of 300 lives, 

 brought it up at the session of 1854, when it 

 became a law. It is noteworthy that its pas- 

 sage was strenuously opposed in d^c-ussion in 

 the House, and upon a yea and my vote 45 

 members recorded their votes against it. Under 

 its provisions a superintendent, at a compensa- 

 tion of $1,500 per annum, was appointed for 

 each of the two coasts; a keeper was assigned 

 each station at a salary of $200; the stations 

 and their equipments were made serviceable, 

 and bonded custodians were secured for the 



life-boats. Partial improvement in the service 

 resulted ; but the absence of drilled and disci- 

 plined crews, of regulations of any kind for 

 the government of those concerned, and above 

 all of energetic central administration of its af- 

 fairs, were radical defects, and the record con- 

 tinued to be one of meager benefits checkered 

 by the saddest failures. In Congress, in 18(59, 

 the Hon. Charles Ilaight, of New Jersey, at the 

 instance of a resolution of the Legislature of 

 his State, moved an amendment to an appro- 

 priation bill, providing for the employment of 

 crews of surfrnen at the stations, which, though 

 urged with great force, was defeated. Through 

 the vigorous efforts of the Hon. S. 8. Cox, 

 however, a substitute was adopted, which se- 

 cured the employment of these crews, though 

 only at alternate stations. This was a measure 

 of signal benefit, chiefly because it opened the 

 door to the subsequent employment of crews 

 at. all the stations. At the time it was not 

 enough to more than improve the existing con- 

 ditions, and the service, which then scarcely 

 deserved the name, remained half abortive until 

 1871. 



This was the date of the organization of the 

 present life-saving system. Order now began 

 to stream from chaos. During the winter of 

 1870-'71 several fatal disasters, some of them 

 occurring near the stations, others at points 

 where stations should have been, and all ref- 

 erable to irresponsible employees, inadequate 

 boats and apparatus, or remoteness of life- 

 saving appliances, roused the Treasury Depart- 

 ment, then under the administration of the Hon. 

 George S. Boutwell, to make proper represen- 

 tations upon the subject to Congress, which on 

 April 20, 1871, appropriated $200,000, and au- 

 thorized the Secretary of the Treasury to em- 

 ploy crews of surfmen at such stations and for 

 such periods as he might deem necessary. In 

 the February previous Mr. Sumner I. Kimball 

 took charge of the Revenue Marine Service, 

 and the life-saving stations, being then under 

 the charge of that bureau, also became the 

 subject of his consideration. The first step 

 was to definitely ascertain their condition. At 

 his instance, Captain John Faunce, of the Rev- 

 enue Marine, was detailed for this duty, and 

 set out on a tour of inspection of the stations, 

 Mr. Kimball accompanying him a portion of 

 the way. Captain Faunce's report was sub- 

 mitted on August 9, 1871. The report dis- 

 closed stations too remote from each other 

 and from the scenes of periodic shipwreck; 

 the houses filthy, misused, dilapidated, some 

 in ruins, the remainder needing enlargement 

 and repairs ; outfits defective or lacking, even 

 such articles as powder, rockets, shot-lines, 

 hawsers, and shovels being often wanting; 

 apparatus rusty or broken through neglect, 

 sometimes destroyed by vermin, or by those 

 evil persons who, as Bacon says, are but a 

 higher kind of vermin; larceny everywhere 

 active, every portable article being stolen from 

 some of the stations ; the keepers often living 



