The enterprise. [volume] (Harlem, Mont.) 1899-1926, 1912-08-01

- Island and New Jersey not ex-
KMA cepted. This is partly ac-
A< count of the particularly heavy
MnuW sea-traffic in the vicinity, but it
is chiefly due to Cape Cod. It
is this crooked finger of land that has beckoned
a thousand ships to their doom and which in the
hoows of it's dunes holds many tragic story
of lives snuffed out in desperate grapple with
and wind
The night of Tuesday, March H. 1902, was
wild and stormstrewn Running up along the
coast the ocean-going tug Sweepstakes was max
Ing bad weather with her tow of the two big
barges Wadena and John c. Fitzpatrick. For
hours the tripleexpansion engines of the tug had
been churning her screw in the drift of the
heavy head and shortly before daylight her
captain discovered that she was making no head
way He then decided to lie to and, while feel
ing about for anchorabe in the gloom, the
'barges ran aground the edge of Shovelful
Shoal, off the southern end of Monomoy island,
Massachusetts.
When daylight came, the Of the Monomoy
life saving station boarded the barges, but finding
1t impossible to float them on the flood tide, took
their crews ashore.
1t was six days later that the disaster oc-
Cured. Wreckers sent from Boston were at
work on the barges. The tug Peter Smith was
on the ground, having replaced the Sweepstakes.
On the night of the 10th the weather thickened
and gale swept in from the sea-
The night passed without incident, but early
on the morning of the 18th Keeper Eldridge of
the Monomoy station received telephone from
the captain of the Smith asking him If every
thing was all right on the Wadena. This alarmed
Eldridge. as he did not know any had been
left on the barge all night. He started at once
for the point of the island, three miles away to
look over the situation. The Wadena lay half
mile off shore from the point. She seemed to
be riding easily on the bar but the distress was
flying from her rigging. This signal Ed
ridge could not ignore.
1t was terrific pull through the breakers that
lolled in across the shoals to the Wadena, but
the life-savers accomplished it and put their boat
unoer the lee of the barge at about noon. Keep
er Eldridge then directed the men to get into the
surfboM and told thin that he would take them
ashore. The rail of the big barge a dozen
; feet from the water and |, was here that the
trouble began
The naen on the barge lowered themselves over
side on rope, but Captain Olsen, very large
man, was halfway down, he lost his hold and fell
ON the second thwart of the lifeboat, breaking
1t, ano making it impossible for the rowers to
use 1t. In addition the boat was crowded and
the VIVID, which had been momentarily increas-
Ing Was tumbing huge combers into the wind
ward OF the barge. 1t was into this maestrom
OF break4rs that it necessary for the handi-
capped crew of the lfe-saving station to pull
their overloaded boat, and they made swift
and able attempt to accomplish it. At the instant
the starboard oarsmen were swinging the head of
the fe-boat to meet the sea, giant comber lifted
under the quarter and dashed barrel of water
oversize. That the signal for a panic among
the rescued that before it subsidized, cost
twelve lives.
The Portuguese wreckers, In frenzy of fear,
stood up in the boat, rocking it to and fro in
their endeavors to escape the momentary thrush
OF water, and though the lifesavers fought to
force them into the bottom of the craft, this
could not be done before the next shoudering
he hOw ~ no h0o< how
broadsde and turned her over
Then ensued desperate struggle for life
hundred yards to leeward the breakers were
smashing themselves into white foam on the bar.
There was just one chance in million that the
Fboat could be righted before the sea carried her
Into them. Once she reached them 1t would be
all over Hampered by the wreckers, the life.
savers fought desperately in those few minutes
left before the combers should be reached Three
times they righted the boat and strove heroically
to bail her. but each time she was again over
turned. They were fighting the last tragic fight
when they We're swept into the smothering foam
of the bar.
At that instant seven men, including all from
the Wadena, went to face their maker Five of
the hardest OF the lfe-savers still chung to the
capsized boat. They Keeper Eldridge and
Surfmen Ellis Kendrick Foye and Rogers BY a
superhuman effort Kendrick crawled to the bot
tom OF the overturned craft, but the next sea
swept him to join the seven who had gone a mo-
niene before Foye was the next. "Good-by.
boys he gasped as a smother of foam took him
That left Ellis, Rogers and Eldridge the keeper
and Eldrdge was fast losing strength
In brief lull In the wash of the sea. Ellis
crawled to the bottom of the boat Below him.
foot away, was the keeper, a friend since bow
hood. At the risk of his own life Ellis dropped
into the water again, pushed Eldridge I'D on the
bottom with his last strength, and again crawled
out himself. The next second a sea washed both
al and the keeper, after losing and regaining his