Saturday, March 17, 2012

Barkentine Henry Norwell ~ 7 July 1896

Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the fiscal year ending June 30 1897:

Stranded at 2 a.m. 2-1/2 miles NNE. of the station, having failed to wear ship in a heavy squall. Information of the disaster was brought to the keeper two hours later by a local resident. A crew of 8 men was employed (inactive seamen), and with the assistance of the keeper of the Chicamacomico Station the life savers proceeded to her aid in the surfboat. Finding that the vessel had worked over the outer bar, close inshore, it was decided not to use the boat. A line was sent from the wreck and a hawser set up by the life savers; a boat-swain’s chair was then rigged on a traveler, and all hands (10 in number, including the master’s wife) were safely landed, together with their effects and a portion of the ship’s stores, which were hauled to the station by the service team from Chicamacomico. By ordered of the owners the vessel was turned over to the wreck commissioner on July 10, and the material saved was sold on the 14th, the barkentine proving a total loss. The shipwrecked people were sheltered at the station, the crew leaving for Elizabeth City on the fourth day, but the master remaining until the final disposition was made of the wreck.

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