Schooner Kate Miller ~ 22 November 1881

Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1881:

The schooner Kate Miller, of Philadelphia, bound from Wilmington, Delaware to Galveston, Texas, with a crew of seven men and a cargo of railroad-iron, sprung a leak on the voyage and attempted to put into Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina, for a harbor. While at anchor off the bar, in charge of a pilot, during a heavy northeasterly gale, with a heavy sea, the leak increased so that the vessel was in danger of sinking. The cables were slipped and the vessel ran ashore in the breakers, about a mile south of the inlet. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon when she stranded. The crew and pilot, eight in all, landed in the schooner’s yawl, and, after setting up a signal on an adjacent hill, took refuge in an old hut near the beach. The weather being thick and rainy, the wreck was not discovered from Station No. 23, Sixth District (Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina) about six miles distant, on the other side of the inlet, until the next morning at about half-past five. The life-saving crew started at once in their surf-boat, and after crossing the inlet landed on the inside and hauled the boat over to the surf-shore, from which point they pulled out to the vessel. They reached the wreck at 10 o’clock, and collecting the personal effects of her crew carried them ashore. As nothing further could be done on board, the keeper made preparations to convey the sailors across the inlet to the station. The wind was so strong that he could not pull it with the surf-boat, so he engaged the services of a sail-boat, and by that means sent them over to the station, promising to follow as soon as possible. By 1 o’clock in the afternoon he was able to start across with the surf-boat, the farther shore being reached at 3 o’clock, after a very hard pull. As the men were fagged out, and unable to get the boat any further, he beached her in a safe place inside the inlet, and then all hands walked to the station, where they arrived at 5 o’clock. They found the schooner’s crew had arrived some hours previous. The latter were sheltered at the station for four days. The vessel rapidly settled in the sand and became a total loss, but a portion of the cargo was afterwards recovered by the wreckers.

Wilmington Morning Star, Wilmington, NC, November 27, 1880:


Schooner Kate Miller, Capt. Scull, from Wilmington, Delaware, with a cargo of railroad iron, bound for Galveston, Texas, went ashore one mile south of Hatteras Inlet on the 22nd The crew, consisting of eight men, was saved in the schooner’s boat. The vessel is bilged and will probably prove a total loss.