Schooner Charles C. Lister, Jr. ~ 22 January 1891

Just before noon on January 22 keeper James Howard spied a schooner in the breakers off Hatteras Bar about 1-1/2 miles SE of the station with busted sails. The vessel proved to be the Charles C. Lister, Jr. enroute from New York City to Wilmington, NC with a party of four under the command of Captain J.W. Pate. The following day the station crew returned to the wreck to retrieve the crews personal effects before the captain turned the schooner over to salvors. Howard's report follows in part:

... Weather being very thick and stormy, gale wind from SSE. Surf very rough. It look almost imposable to get to the sch. She was about 1 1/2 miles from shore but keep cault out crew took surf boat as it was imposable to reach her with gun. Left station 12 n. Hitch mule to boar carring her to surf. Lanch boat about 12:30 p.m. through very bad surf and very hard to row the current was very strong and gale, wind so hard had very hard tug to get to wreck schooner but with strong effort we wear suckcessful reaching her. We manage boat so one cold get in boat at a time. We refused to take her trunks as the sea was so bad. tuck all the crew, five and landed all right, tuck them up to station, gave them dry clothes and food, ceard for them ...
 
 
Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1891

HATTERAS, NORTH CAROLINA, January 31, 1891

"DEAR SIR: Allow me to express my fervent thanks to yourself and your noble crew for the prompt and successful rescue of myself and entire crew from our perilous situation when stranded in the breakers on Ocracoke Beach on the morning of January 22, 1891. Trusting that you may be spared many years to your noble calling of saving human life, I am gratefully yours, J.W. COVERDALE, Late Master of Schooner Charles C. Lister, Jr."

Clipper Flying Cloud ~ 1854

In an article that appeared in the Beaufort News on August 31, 1941, Aycock Brown refers to the, "... FLYING CLOUD wrecking on Ocracoke Beach in 1854":

... Jamie Styron, a commercial fisherman and guide, had the figurehead, inherited from his father, which reputedly came from the old FLYING CLOUD -- and that Jamie's brother Lige will still sing the chantey which was composed by an islander about the ship that begins like this:

Oh! I looked to the east'art,

And I looked to the west'are --

And I saw ole Flying Cloud a-comin'

She was loaded with silks,

And the finest of satins,

But now she's gone across Jordan.

According to the article, Mr. Brown was under the impression that the vessel was the fabled clipper ship FLYING CLOUD. Quoting from the same article:

After Cape Stormy in the Post, Wesley Stout, its editor, was embarrassed because I had tied in a FLYING CLOUD with my Ocracoke story. The Clipper ... did not end her career until in the 1870's.
     ... later from some small port on Long Island came a letter to the Post which was forwarded to me from an old timer saying: It could not have been the famous clipper 'Flying Cloud' but perhaps it was a Barkentine by the name of FLYING CLOUD, built in 1853 and presumably lost on a South Atlantic Beach the following year.

Mr. Brown further states that the figurehead was finally sold to a summer resident at Nags Head.

Schooner Harmon Curtis ~ 17 August 1878

Home port Harrington, ME: The schooner Harmon Curtis came ashore on the Ocracoke beach, ½ mile NE of the cable box. Total loss.