Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1912-08-02

grasp the gunwale several times, disappeared
in the maelstrom of water. That left Ellis ana
Rogers, big and very strong man.
In this desperate moment Rogers threw MS
arms around the other surfmans neck in death
grip For moments, while the sea battered and
the foam strangled them, they fought the last
grim fight for life Ellis to break the grip OF his
frenzied comrade, Rogers to retain it. Suddenly.
when 1t seemed that both must drown, Rogers
strength left him. His arms relaxed; his eyes
glazed. I'm going!" he gasped and sank
moment later the boat drifted inshore OF the
outer breakers and for brief space was in
smoother water. Ellis once more crawled out on
the bottom and succeeded in pulling the center
board out that he could hold on to 1t and bet
ter maintain his position.
Now, you will remember that at the time OF
the strandng of the Wadena, the John c. F4tz-
patrick, her sister barge had also gone aground.
She had gone the outer bar and was lying
between it and the inner breakers. On board her
was Capt Elmer F. Mayo of Chatham, who was
in charge of tightening her. The Fitzpatrick was
far away from the Wadena that Captain Mayo,
and two other who were with him, did not
see the lifesaving boat go out, nor did they have
any knowledge of the grim tragedy that was being
enacted, until, glancing over the rail, Captain
Mayo saw an overturned life-boat with single
clinging to It,
The capsized boat was some distance from the
barge, but Mayo did not hesitate. I'll get that
fellow" he announced coolly.
On the deck of the Fitzpatrick lay small
twelve-foot dory the only boat aboard, totally
unfit craft for the furious that laundering
across the shoals. Kicking off his boots Mayo
and the other men, who begged him not to go as
1t would be certain DEATH ran the dory oversize.
How the captain of the wrecking crew kept his
fragile craft afoat, those who watched him from
the Fitzpatrick could mover understand But he
did keep her afoat, and the set of the tide and
the gale carried, him down toward the capsized
life-boat to which Ellis clung now with the last
of his ebbng strength.
The life-saver said afterward that he saw a
dory thrown the side of the Fitzpatrick as
he drifted her, but that moment later the
scud and the spindrift were driven so thick and
ceaselessly before his eyes that he nothing,
until suddenly out of the mist tiny. bobbing
boat loomed dozen feet away. Then the occu-
pant of this boat shot her skilfully alongside the
swamped life-boat and the exhausted surfman top
pied into her.
Mayo with the half-conscious life-saver lying
limp In the bottom of the dory, had kept his word
to his mates the Fitzpatrick.
Necessarily the most thrilling stories of the
coast-watchers those in which loss of life is
entailed and therefore, in a measure they are
accounts of the failures of the men of the serv-
ice. But they are stories of noble failures and
behnd some of them lie tragedies other than
those of death.
Perhaps one of the greatest of these is woven
about the career of Captain David H. Atkins, un-
til November 80, 1880, keeper of the Peaked Hill
Bar station, Cape Cod.
This man had followed the sea from boyhood
whaling, fishing and coasting, In 1872 he became
keeper Of the Peaked Hill Bar station.
Then came a wild day in April, 1879, and as
It appears in the chronicles of the department
at Washington. "a blot fell across the record OF
Keeper Atkins"
On this April day the Schooner Sarah ]. Fort
stranded near Peaked Hill Bar terrific sea
coupled with an onshore hurricane and tempera
ture very low for the time of the year, faced At
kns and his they discovered the schooner
and took their apparatus to the beach,
Without hesitation the keeper ordered the surf
boat launched, but the sea was heavy that II
was thrown back on the beach. Time and again
in the twenty hours of watching and battling with
the storm that followed the keeper led his mer
into the breakers with the boat, but each time
they were beaten back, drenched with the winter