They have to go 



out, don't have 



to come back 



The modern Coast Guard came into 

 being January 28, 1915, with the merger 

 ,of the Revenue Cutter Service and the 

 Lifesaving Service. It was a logical con- 

 solidation, since both services had worked 

 closely within the Treasury Department 

 for upwards of a century with but a com- 

 mon aim — to protect life and property 

 from the ravages of the sea. Actually, the 

 Lifesaving Service had been established 

 within the Revenue Marine Division in 

 1871, but seven years later had been made 

 a separate bureau. During the separation, 

 however, cutter officers supervised the 

 drilling and inspection of lifesaving sta- 

 tion crews. 



The cutters' concern with maritime 

 safety dates back to 1831, when the first 

 winter cruise was ordered to aid seafarers 

 and ships in distress. Cutters were charged 

 in 1836 "to aid persons at sea, in distress, 



who may be taken aboard," and in 1843 to 

 preserve property found aboard wrecks 

 and to secure the cargoes for the owners. 



Humane Society, 1785 



Lifesaving operations from shore date 

 from the founding of the Massachusetts 

 Humane Society, a volunteer group, in 

 1785. The society built its first lifeboat 

 station at Cohasset in 1807. In 1849, a 

 congressional appropriation provided the 

 collector of customs at Boston with $5,000 

 to buy boathouses and equipment for the 

 society. The next year, Congress appro- 

 priated $10,000 to build Government life- 

 boat stations along the New Jersey coast 

 and to provide "surfboats, rockets, carro- 

 nades, and other apparatus for the better 

 preservation of life and property from 

 shipwrecks on the coast." 



Surf-cars and cannon 



One of the first stations was built at 

 Spermacetti Cove on Sandy Hook, N. J., 

 in 1849. It has been preserved as a Coast 

 Guard museum. Inside this structure of 

 weather-beaten shingles about the size of 

 a two-car garage are relics of long ago, in- 

 cluding the station's yellowed logbooks. 



The Coast Guard's self-righting, nonsinkable motor lifeboat. 





