The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-08-05
THRILLING SCENES
FROM THE SHORE:
VESSEL FOUNDERS IN PLAIN SIGHT
OF THE HOTEL.
From the Verge of Watery Grave
the Passengers Are Transported
to the Lap of Luxury and Enter
tanned BY Wealth, Beauty ans
Fashion.
[From the New York Sum-


ing at General Earle's summer hotel,
at Normandie-b y-the-Sea, had an ex-
| citing afternoon this week rescuing
and entertaining the shipwrecked crew
of the schooner Robert H. Mitchell,
which foundered two miles off shore
in plain sight of the hotel.
The day set in with northeaster,
and, as is customary when northeast
ers are around, the seas piled up on
the beach and the spray dashed over
the bulkheads and across the roadway.
The two-masted schooner Robert H.
Mitchell came along about 1 o'clock.
a cargo Of salt in bags. When the
hotel folks saw her first she was four
miles off. toward Sandy Hook. and
coming down the beach at good clip.
Captain Abner H. West, of the Nor
mandie Hfe-saving station, happened
to be up in his tower, too, and saw the
Mitchell at about the same time the
hotel folks saw her.
Suddenly she gave a lurch to mort.
and sea coming behind her seemed
to lift her and drive her down into the
water. 1t was long half minute be-
fore she righted herself again, and
every one in the party on the beach
J held his breath. AS she did right her
/ self the watcher saw men climbing up
the rigging both fore and aft For
perhaps minute after the vessel
righted she held her head up; then she
took another sudden list to port an
other sea caught her under the stern,
and this time her nose went under the
waves, and in moment she slid down
into the water as if she had been on
a toboggan slide or had slipped down
the ways of dry dock.
Just as she went down a, wave
washed over her. For time the
watchers were speeches. and stupefied.
Then their senses came back and they
screamed and ran hither and thither,
everyone ready to do something, but
nobody knowing what to do. Two min
utes after the boat had gone down she
seemed to have found a steal potion,
for her two masts that had been sway
ing back and forth grew steady. The
tops stood twenty feet out Of the
water, and away up in the crosstrees
men could be seen clinging.
Because the appropriation for the
maintenance of the life-saving stations
is so small, it is not possible to keep
crews at these stations the year round,
and in the summer months the cap
tains only are on duty. Captain Vests
regular crew is made up Of fishermen,
and most of them live at Seabright,
mile below Normandie. The captain
started on a run to that town to gather
them up.
He ran into the town shouting and
the town turned out to meet him.
Three of his own men were in the
crowd and he called for volunteers.
There were enough to man a dozen
life boats. Someone found wagon and
horse already hitched up. The owner
shouted to the volunteers to pile in and
in almost less than it takes to tell it
the party was going down the road at a
break-neck speed. The time seemed
very long, however, to the hotel guests.
A dozen or so of the guests had glasses
and they kept the rest informed Of
what they saw. Now and then q, wave
yzould wash up, and for an instant the
men would be concealed. Then a shout
would go up.
They're lost! they're lost"
But the waves would recede showing
them still clinging. Finally the shouts
of the men in the wagon coming lickety
split down the road were heard, and
the shoutes of the crowd behind it
that had followed along in its trail
from Seabright. Then the men in the
hotel party ran down to the life saving
station.
captain
the wagon. His daughters had already
unlocked and opened the doors of the
house where the big life boats are kept,
and they had the line fast to the front
of the drag on which the boat rested
ready to be grabbed and hauled out
The captain seized the end of the line
and ran out with it. The crew and the
volunteers fell in behind him and the
bank presidents and railroad presidents
oil in oh
with a grip on the line.
1t was a third OF a mile run up the
beach to place where the boat could
be launched The road for that third
of a mile was the sandiest bit of road
in the whole state of Jersey, but the
heavy carriage and the heavy boat were
whisked over it like a sled on an icy
hill.
In the party that manned the ropes
there were ex-Clerk of the United
States Senate ]. H. Flag. C. B. Clark,
vice-president of the United States
Trust company; Schuyler Walton, J. B.
Ladd of Ladd & Coffin, r. P Kern,
P. c. Robbins, A. S. Brown, Howard
Carroll, William Bird, General Earle,
Ferdinand Earle, jr, F. H. Patton,
Colonel J. Witherington, c.. o. Peters
and G. F. Kohlstadt.
To tell the truth the whole hotel
register might be printed, for every man
there who could get hold had hold of
the rope and pulled and hauled and ran
as if Satan was after him. Right down
to the waters edge they went, and
then letting go the rope they manned
the sides of the boat, and with whoop
and rush they launched it out on the
surf.
Captain Vests crew had their shoes
off and their trousers rolled up above
their knees. They carried the boat on |
out over the first breaker and then
scrambled in like monkeys, and as a |
wave receded and carried the boat |
with it they grabbed their oars and |
pulled for dear life.
Then cheer after cheer went up from |
the shore as they successfully rode the |
breakers. Men and women danced up |
and down and cheered and waved their |
hats and handkerchief.
1t was truly hard battling for the
men until they had crossed the bar, |
and strain as they did at the oars,
their progress was eXasperatingly I
slow AS long as they were within |
hearing the crowd yelled at them to I
them. Finally they got |
across the bar and then the people |
settled down to wait.
AS the lifeboat came near the found
cred schooner and the folks on shore
with glasses cried, They've got there |
now, a big wave washed them away.
The men in the rigging could be seen
making ready to leap. The life savers
twirled their boat around and bent to
their oars. A few strokes brought
them within reaching distance of the
foremast, and one man in the rigging
80 RnN