Daybreak discovered to the lookout at the Cape Fear Station (Sixth District) coast of North Carolina, a large three-masted schooner aground on the west side of Frying Pan Shoals. Notwithstanding the wind was light and the sea smooth, it took the life savers more than two hours to pull out to her in their surf boat. She was the Minnie Anna Bonsall, of Wilmington, Delaware, loaded with lumber, but full of water. She had been abandoned by her crew, but just before the station men reached her four pilots had boarded her from their schooner. At 1 o’clock, on the rising tide, she was hove into deep water, and the surfmen then started to row to Southport for a tug. Before arriving at the bar off the entrance to Cape Fear River, they fell in with a tug and returned with her to the schooner. An attempt was made to tow the latter into port at high tide, but she drew too much water and stuck on the bar. All hands then went to Southport to get something and also to procure assistance to discharge the deck load before the next full sea. During their absence the crew of the Oak Island Station visited the vessel and remained until the others returned (at 9 o’clock in the evening), when, their assistance not being required, they went home. About one-quarter of the cargo was thrown overboard before the schooner could be got over the bar. She was towed in and run aground on the flats off Southport. It was subsequently learned that the Bonsall had sprung a leak and filled at sea, and that when some fifteen miles southwest of the Frying Pan Shoals lightship her crew had been taken off by a passing vessel.
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