The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1961-03-17
Gallant Deeds Of By-Gone
Years in The Walter
Raleigh Coastland.
WRECK OF THE GERMAN SHIP
ELIZABETH, JANUARY 1887

ELIZABETH, JANUARY 1887
The saddest disaster of the year
1887, is, without. doubt, that of the
80 year old German ship Elisabeth.
This wreck occurred on the 9Th day
of January, 1887, at a point on the
Coast of Virginia bout twelve miles
below Cape Henry, and involved
the loss of twenty-seven lives, in
Guiding the entire personnel of the
ship and five men of the Life-Sav
ing Service. The Elisabeth was a
fine craft of twelve hundred and
thirty-nine tons register, built in
Boston in 1885, as the Empress,
and subsequently sold to parties in
Bremen who put her under the
German flag. She had sailed from
Hamburg the latter part of the
preceding November with cargo
of several hundred tons of kainit,
or manure salt, and five thousand
empty petroleum barrels consigned
to the parties in Baltimore.
Her commander, Capt. Frederick
G. Halberstadt, an experienced
and able shipmaster, had celebrated
his fiftieth round voyage across
the Atlantic the previou summer, in
Baltimore.
The ship arrived on the coast in
the vicinity of Cape Henry just as
a binding snow-storm set in at
about dusk on the evening of Fri
day, January z. The wind had
freshened to a twenty-eight mile
gale from the northeast and this
raised a turbulent and dangerous
sea. The time at which she struck
can only be conjectured; but from
the fact that she sunk on the outer
edge of the bar fully three hundred
and forty yards out from the high
water mark and that the starboard
anchor was down, it is thought that
she grounded at low-water just be-
fore or about midnight and that
the anchor was dropped to prevent
her from driving nearer the shore,
with the hope that she would float
when the tide rose. 1t is possible
that finding herself in shoal water
she had cast anchor, and then ow-
ing to the violence of the gale and
the sea had dragged into the
breakers.
Whichever of these theories is
correct, one thing is certain, the
ship soon bilged and then settled
rapidly in the sand; for at day
light on the morning of the 9th,
she was decks to, and the sea was
breaking over almost her entire
length. She lay parallel to the
beach with her head to the north,
the anchor which was down trend
ing to the northeast, or off shore,
on the starboard bow.
Discovery of her was made at
about 1 o'clock in the morning by
the mid-watch patrols of the Dam
Neck Mills and Little Island Sta
tons (Sixth District), Surfman
George w. Stone, of Little Island,
reaching his station two and a half
miles to the southwark at 2 o'clock
while Surfman James E. Belanga
arrived and gave the alarm at the
Dam Neck Mills Station, four miles
to the Northward of the vessel at
about twenty minutes to 8. The
ship was about half a mile south
of the place where the patrols of
the stations usually met, and there
fore, within the Little Island patrol
limits. The respective crews sprang
from their beds as soon as they
heard the alarm, and set out upon
the mission from which some of
them were destined never to return
alive.
Surfmen Lost Their Lives
The ship being within Keeper
Abel Belanga's precinct, they pro-
ceeded to the scene with his beach
apparatus, while Keeper Barco, Of
Dam Neck Mills, took simply a
spare shot line. The latter and his
men thus comparatively free-foot-
ed, and having the wind at their
backs, reached the neighborhood of
the wreck shortly after four o'clock,
finding that Belanga's men had not
yet come pushed on south to meet
them and give them a helping hand.
This aided the latter materially, as
they were nearly exhausted from
drawing the heavily laden cart
against the wind, and through the
snow drifts in some places almost
waist deep. The ship meanwhile had
been making signals by torch or
Coston lights, every ten or fifteen
minutes from the time of her dis
covery by the patrol.
1t lacked but twenty minutes of
5 o'clock, when the party arrived
and commenced operations for an
attempt to establish communi-
cations by means of the wreckgun.
Although the moon was nearly at
its full, it was deeply hidden by the
snow clouds and morning was
dark; so dark that only a dim out