Schooner Mary S. Bradshaw ~ 1 June 1889

Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889:

CAPSIZING OF THE YAWL BELONGING TO THE SCHOONER MARY S. BRADSHAW
This fatality occurred June 1, 1889, about a quarter of a mile from the Creed’s Hill Station (Sixth District) coast of North Carolina, during the inactive season when the regular life-saving crew were off duty.
     The schooner Mary S. Bradshaw, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sailed from Charleston, South Carolina, May 28th, bound for her home port. She had a crew of seven men and a cargo of phosphate rock. In a southeast gale which she encountered, her sails were blown away and she began to drift towards the Diamond shoals, off Cape Hatteras. The weather was foggy, with a high sea running, and the vessel being old began to leak badly. She was therefore brought to an anchor; this at about daybreak of June 1st. The captain knowing, under the conditions that prevailed, that he was beyond signaling distance from the shore, being some nine miles off, determined, in view of the critical situation of the schooner, to attempt to gain the land in his small boat. The crew accordingly abandoned the vessel and pulled for shore. 

     When they had reached the outer bar the yawl was discovered by the wife of the keeper of the Creed’s Hill Station, who immediately send a boy for her husband, he having but a short time previously started for a store about three miles distant to obtain necessary provisions. The sailors, instead of waiting outside the line of breakers to see whether any assistance could be rendered them from the beach, started through the surf, which was sweeping in with great fury, when their boat was quickly turned end over end and the occupants dashed out. All except the steward, Thomas Williams, reached the shore in safety. The latter was not seen alive after the capsize, and from the bruises which were found upon his head when the body was recovered three days later, it was judged that he was fatally injured at the time the boat upset, and was consequently drowned immediately. The keeper, who put back with all haste when the messenger overtook him, reached the scene just as the survivors were landing. He at once conducted them to the station, where were properly cared for and furnished with dry clothing from the stores placed at the disposal of the Service by the Women’s National Relief Association.
     At the time of the accident the surf was so heavy along the beach that it would have been impossible to launch a boat and go to the rescue of the imperiled men. The only chance of aiding them would have been by means of a line which might have been fired to them when they were outside the breakers. It appears, however, that the captain fully realized that a boat could not be got clear of the shore to their assistance, and so he resolved to take the desperate risk of landing, the chance of success seeming to be as one in a hundred. It is little less than a miracle that all were not drowned.
     It is plain that the loss of this life happened under conditions which made its prevention by the Life Saving Service practically out of the question. The keeper, on the 4th, found the body of the steward and gave it a decent burial.
     The schooner, the day after being abandoned, was taken in tow by a steamer to Baltimore. She was badly damaged although not more than one-fifth of her cargo proved a loss.