The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1952-02-01
WRECK OF SCHOONER
LIZZIE S. HAYES, 1889

The third of the group Of three
disasters in the Sixth District at
tended with the fatal results to
five persons, during the great Oc-
tober storm was that of the Lizzie
S. Haynes, three-masted schoon-
er owned in Bath. Maine, which
wrecked between, the Oregon
Inlet and Pea Island Stations, on
the Coast of North Carolina, in
the forenoon Of October "a, 1889.
The northeast storm was then
raging in all its fury, and there
was a frightful sea. Her crew
numbered seven men, and of these
all but two persisted. She was a
vessel of 437 tons under Capt.
Sawyer, and was bound from
Savannah, Georgia, to Baltimore,
Maryland, with cargo of yellow
pine lumber valued at 100000.
Vessel valued at $4,000 and cargo
were a total loss.
From the accounts received it
appears that she was first sighted
by the crew of the Oregon Inlet
station at about half-past 8
o'clock, a mile or two distant to
the northward and eastward and
could just be dimly made out
through the binding rain, as she
plunged and rolled'in the turbulent
waters under scant canvas and
with her head pointed offshore. It
was soon evident that she was
making no Roadway, but, on the
contrary, was drifting to the lee
ward toward the land very fast.
AS she came nearer it was no
ticed that her crew had taken
refuge in the rigging, sure sign
of her helpless condition. Women
could be seen in the fore shrouds,
three in the main, and two in the
mizzen. Keeper Sam Paine, an
ticipating difficulty in rescuing
them while such a high surf was
tumbling in upon the beach, tele-
phoned the news at once to
Keeper Richard Etheridge of the
next station south (Pea Island),
and asked his aid. By 9 o'clock,
when the schooner was nearly
abreast of Oregon Inlet, Paine and
his men had set out with the
breeches-buoy apparatus to follow
her down the shore, but she drifted
so rapidly before the gale, and the
beach was so deeply flooded in
places that it was found impossible
to keep up with her. She struck at
twenty minutes to 10 o'clock, three
hundred yards from the beach, at
a point three and three-quarters
miles below Oregon Inlet and a
little less than two miles north of
Pea Island Station. She was with
in Capt. Dick Etheridge's boat.
The latter, as requested by Paine,
had promptly left his station with
a spare shot-line "a No. y, the
medicine chest, and a bag of
blankets, and being tn e n e f o e
lightly burdened and having the
shorter distance to travel, he and
his crew reached the scene first.
Thinking that the sea would force
the schooner along the bar still
further south, and nearer to his
station, Etheridge dispatched his
men back with the horses for his
own beach apparatus, while he
proceeded on north to meet the
Oregon Inlet crew to lend them
hand, and at the same time con-
suit with his brother keeper. The
latter arrived abreast of the YES
sci at 10 o'clock, before the Pea
Island crew could return.
Killed by Falling Masts
In the meantime a distressing
and terrible accident had befaller
the hapless people on the schoon-
er, which practically sealed the
fate of all but two Of their num-
Der. 1t happened about five min.
utes before the Oregon Inlet crew
arrived. The two crews were al
this moment hurrying to the scene
from opposite directions with
their life-saving appliances, wheT
at five minutes before 10 O'Clock
fifteen minutes after the schoon.
er struck-the Oregon Inlet crew
then but a short distance away
were Mortified by the sight of al
three of the schooner's masts
breaking off by the board, leaving
nothing standing above the dect
but a stump of about 20 feet Of
the mizzen mast. The masts fel
toward the stern and carried al
but one of the crew to the deck
that one falling overheard anC
being Immediately swept out o.
sight.
This appalling and exciting in
cident infused fresh energy int
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