Early service along 

 the barrier islands 

 was fraught 

 with difficulties. 

 With so few stations, 

 the length of patrols 

 was often as much 

 as 15 miles — 

 too long to be 

 expedient in 

 reporting disasters 

 and rendering aid. 

 At the outset, 

 lifesavers were 

 employed for only 

 four months 

 of the year, 

 December through 

 March, after which 

 the stations 

 were padlocked. 



The Pea Island Station, circa 1940 



one defends their-Selves against them, 

 they are taken to the gard house for it." 



In 1866, a year after the war ended, 

 Etheridge left the military. He returned 

 to the Outer Banks, where he married 

 and resumed his life as a fisherman. 



Etheridge joined the Lifesaving 

 Service during its first years, serving at 

 the Oregon Inlet station in 1875 and 

 later at the Bodie Island station, where 

 Newcomb and Shoemaker found him 



occupying the lowest ranking position 

 on the duty roster. 



The former keeper at Pea Island 

 had hired a checkerboard crew, but 

 Etheridge 's would be all black. The 

 day he arrived to assume the keeper- 

 ship, the white surfmen abandoned the 

 station, unwilling to serve under a 

 black man. To complete Etheridge 's 

 crew, Newcomb decided to transfer 

 black surfmen from other district 



6 MAY i JUNE 1995 



