Schooner Nomis ~ 16 August 1935

SHORTLY AFTER midnight on Saturday, August 17, 1935, the 3-masted schooner Nomis of New York, foundered on the outer reef of Ocracoke beach abreast Six Mile Hammock during a southeast storm. Coastguardsmen under the command of Capt. Bernice Balance, Hatteras Inlet Station and Capt. Elisha Tillett, Ocracoke station, rushed equipment down the beach and the rescue via breeches buoy, of Capt. Charles C. Clausen, master-owner of the Nomis, and son Charles Jr. of Hampstead, L.I.; Michael Hotykay and Henry Wolzanski, Perth Amboy; Leon Jerome, New York, and Albert Butes of Georgetown, S.C., crew members, was effected about 7 o’clock Saturday morning.

The Nomis was the last schooner to wreck on Ocracoke. She was bound from Georgetown, SC, to New York with a cargo of 338,000 feet of lumber. On Tuesday, the 20th, Theodore Meekins of Manteo, representing the underwriters, and other insurance agents arrived to arrange for a vendue of the cargo of heavy rough lumber which was held at 10 o’clock on September 6th following salvage operations which had given temporary employment to a number of the islanders here. The above photo was made by the former Miss Selma Wise, now Mrs. Ben E. Spencer, who was a member of the Ocracoke school faculty at that time. (Beacon Photo)