482 



HISTORY OF C OH ASSET. 



Minot station has been spelled out in splendid telegraphy upon 

 the ebon scroll of night. 



Lighthouse inaugurated October 2, 1858. Addresses on the occasion by Captain 

 B. S. Alexander, Mayor Lincoln, Hon. Edward Everett, Col. J. T. Heard, Dr. 

 Winslovv Lewis, Hon. L. B. Comins, C, R. Train, and Hon. B. C. Clark. 



On November 25, 1888, the schooner Stella Lee was driven upon Bassing Beach. 

 By the same storm the Sasanoa was driven across from Gloucester Harbor and 

 was thrown high upon Pleasant Beach. The dismantled wreck was so picturesque 

 that Messrs. Luce, Kendall, and Manning bought it and kept it there for seven or 

 eight years, until some vandals burned it. During this storm the H. C. Higginson 

 was driven upon the rocks at Atlantic Hill. Captain James Anderson, of Cohasset, 

 with his volunteer crew shot a line over the mast; it caught securely, and three 

 men of the four who were lashed in the rigging were taken off alive ; the fourth was 

 dead. Manuel E. Salvador, Frank F. Antoine, and John J. Ainslie received bronze 

 medals for bravery on this occasion. 



But a storm far more destructive than any other in the history of our coast has 

 just broken upon us November 27, 1898, while this book is being printed. Over 

 two hundred and fifty lives have been reported lost upon the shores of this one 

 ■ State. Fifty-six vessels, including the massive passenger steamer Portland, have 

 been cast away or hammered to splinters. Upon our own Cohasset shore two 

 wrecks have fallen. One was a coal barge heavily loaded which was dashed to bits 

 "upon Black Rock. Three of the crew jumped upon the island. Our Cohasset vol- 

 unteer crew in a lifeboat endeavored to rescue these men, but the sea was so vio- 

 lent that the boat was capsized before she was fairly started, throwing her crew into 

 the water. Captain James, of Hull, with his United States life-saving crew in their 

 own lifeboat, made a long detour to the island and finally rescued the castaways. 

 Another wreck was the fine new fishing schooner Juniata, of Boston. She was 

 returning to port with her catch, when the northeast gale with its blinding snow 

 overtook her. She anchored several miles north of Minot Light, but the sea broke 

 her cables and the wind ripped her new sails into rags and drove her with her crew 

 of eighteen men lashed in the rigging to our shore. She lodged first upon a ledge 

 outside of Brush Island and then she was driven past the western end of Brush 

 Island to the breakwater upon Beach Island, where the entire crew landed in safety. 

 The destruction of roads and buildings near the sea has been the greatest in our 

 history. The road at Pleasant Beach and Sandy Beach has been washed out, 

 stone walls and gravel and all, to a depth of six feet in some places, while in others 

 hundreds of tons of beach stones have buried the road out of sight. The sea 

 leaped the barriers and swept bath houses across Little Harbor, landing them a half 

 mile away. At the Cove, houses were flooded, and pleasure boats which were sup- 

 posed to be hauled up to safe distances were borne upon the tidal wave into the 

 street. 



