New Article & Updated Speaking Schedule
I’m posting a new survival story on the blog, this one with a historical slant. Also posted is a list of places you can come and see my slide presentations.
Programs Open to the Public
| 1/18 | Tue | 6:30 | Athol MA Library | Overboard | |
| 1/31 | Mon | 7:00 | Wilbraham MA Library | Overboard | |
| 2/5 | Sat | 1:00 | Waterford CT Library | Blizzard 78 | |
| 2/9 | wed | 9:00 am | Sudbury MA Library | King Philip | |
| 2/15 | Tue | 7:00 | Dover NH Library | Overboard | |
| 2/17 | Thur | 10 am | Winchester MA Library | Quabbin | |
| 3/14 | Mon | 12:30 | Wellesley MA Community Ct | Ten Hours | |
| 3/20 | Sun | 7:00 | Leverett MA Library | King Philip | |
| 3/21 | Mon | 7:00 | Uxbridge MA Library | King Philip | |
| 3/23 | Wed | 7:00 | Warren MA Library | Overboard | |
| 3/26 | Sat | 2:00 | Hingham MA Library | King Philip | |
| 3/30 | Weds | 7:00 | Westfield MA Library | Overboard | |
| 3/31 | Thurs | 7:30 | Holliston MA Library | Overboard | |
| 4/4 | Mon | 6:30 | Somerset Historical MA | King Philip | |
| 4/9 | Sat | 10:00am | Get Published in Franklin | (registration required) | |
| 4/11 | Mon | 9:30 am | Beverly MA Library | Overboard | |
| 4/12 | Tue | 7:00 | Dover MA Kraft Hall | Porcupine | |
| 4/17 | Sun | 2:00 | Bedford MA, Cong. Church | Finest Hours | |
| 4/20 | Weds | 7:00 | Bourne Historical | Overboard |
The Tragedy of the Wadena
(Panic at Monomoy Island leads to death for the rescued and rescuers)
Off the tip of Monomoy Island, Cape Cod, the barge Wadena had grounded on the shoals during a storm in March of 1902. Salvage operators, called wreckers, were brought aboard to lighten the load of the barge and try to float it off the sandbar. The wreckers were still at their work on March 17th, when another storm lashed the Cape, and the men on the barge thought the barge would be broken apart. They hoisted an American flag, upside down – a signal of distress—and hoped that the men of the Monomoy Life Saving Station would come to their aid.
Marshall Eldridge, keeper of Monomoy Station, was on lookout, when he noticed the upside down flag, and immediately gathered a crew of seven, led by surfman Seth Ellis, to row a life boat to the barge
When the lifeboat reached the Wadena, Eldridge circled to its lee side and pulled up near the stern. The five men aboard the barge had spent a terrifying night as the waves repeatedly knocked their vessel into the shoal, threatening to break the hull apart. Now salvation had arrived, and the frightened men wanted off the barge, and quickly. They immediately started lowered themselves over the side with a rope and fell into the lifeboat.
As the Eldridge and his crewmen backed away from the barge a wave shipped water into the surfboat, and the five men that had been rescued panicked, thinking the boat was going to capsize. Standing up, they clutched at the oarsmen, making it impossible for the rescuers to maneuver the boat. Eldridge hollered at the wreckers for order, as another wave cascaded more water into the boat. His order fell on deaf ears, as the rescued clutched onto the rescuers. The next wave capsized the boat and now thirteen men were in the water clutching to the overturned hull, as foamy, freezing seas repeatedly washed over the tumbling surfboat.
Dressed in heavy clothing now waterlogged and dragging them downward, men lost their grip on the lifeboat, were pulled away, and smothered by the turbulent seas until their last breath was gone. Within minutes, only two men, Arthur Rogers and Seth Ellis, were still alive and clinging to the boat as the rip at the shoals and the steep waves yanked at the men’s grip on the boat. At one point Rogers started slipping away, his frozen fingers unable to hold onto the boat’s submerged rail. Ellis shouted encouragement, but Rogers was played out and gasped, “I have got to go,” and the ocean took him as it had the others.
Alone, Ellis doggedly maintained a hold on keel. The boat drifted to calmer waters, and Ellis used this unexpected opportunity to kick off his boots and articles of clothing which were weighing him down. Another lucky break came his way when the boat’s centerboard came ajar of its casing, affording him a better grip.
Aboard a second grounded barge, the Fitzpatrick, the three men aboard had not seen the lifeboat go to the aid of the Wadena. Elmer Mayo, however, had just gone on deck and happened to spot the overturned lifeboat with Ellis still hanging on. Mayo was from Chatham, and in the tradition of its mariners, he decided to risk his own life to try and save Ellis. The Fitzpatrick had a small twelve foot dory on board, and Mayo asked the other two crewmen to help him lower it over the side of the barge. One of them tried to dissuade him, shouting “No, your dory won’t live in that wild water, sir!” Mayo, however, ignored the warning, and once the dory was in the water he scrambled over the side the side of the barge and jumped into the tiny dory. Just two days earlier the dory had capsized in moderate seas and both its oars were lost. The replacement oars were much shorter than the originals and ill-suited for the vessel, but Mayo was undeterred and set out for where he had last seen Ellis.
As a wave tossed the dory to its crest, Mayo searched for the overturned lifeboat, but spray, rain and streaks of foam obscured visibility at ocean level and he could no longer see it. He did his best to maneuver, keeping the bow of his vessel into the seas, and after several minutes he spotted Ellis, still clinging to the overturned hull of the surfboat. Mayo turned the dory, pulled on his oars for all he was worth, and came alongside Ellis.
In a remarkable display of determination, Ellis mustered one last burst of energy and let go of the lifeboat and took hold of the dory, and with Mayo’s help pulled himself up and over the gunwale before collapsing in the dory’s bottom. “I was so used up,” recalled Ellis, “I could not speak.”
Mayo managed to maneuver the dory through the breaking seas and land on the outer-side of Monomoy, where he and Ellis were helped to the station.
Both men received the gold medal lifesaving medal. Later, Ellis pointed out that the deaths of the 5 men from the barge, and the 7 lifesavers, never should have happened. “If those five men taken off the barge had kept their heads and done as we told them all hands would have landed in safety.”
Accusing the men who lost their lives of losing their heads is so bone headed and aweful that words fail me. The men died. Couldn’t Mister Ellis have some decency and and respect for the dead. Mistakes were made under terrible circumstances. Blaming the victims is just horrible for the survivors to hear.
I am sorry that Mr. Ellis is such a judgemental prig that he can’t summon up empathy and compassion for those men who died. There are ways of saying things that aren’t so boulder booted and frankly, unseamanlike.
Bev Ross
Having worked on the ocean on a fishing boat I have some idea about the hazards of the sea. Men who worked on tugs and towed barges in the days before radar and power operated gear had strength and courage that was phenomenal. They certainly had great seamanship.
The men were beached on the barge and probably lost their tug as well. Mr. Ellis has such a self serving view of the incident.
The men on the barge were probably in shock and suffering from hypothermia before Mr. Ellis showed up. Reading between the lines there was plenty that went on that did not involve Mr. Ellis. As for him saying that they were grabbing at him and standing up in the boat terror stricken while he was the only one with a calm head sounds like baloney.
Thanks for the post though. It got me thinking. I am fascinated by how boats and seamen get out of emergency situations. I have been in a few myself but there seems to be endless variations on what can seriously go wrong at sea. On the other hand, there are also countless close shaves and times when pure luck got one through a storm or some other emergency at sea.
Bev Ross
An interesting side note to the Wadena tradgedy follows, taken from Sumner Kimball’s “Joshua James, Life-Saver” about the greatest Life Saving Service rescuer (Joshua James was 76 years old when this occurred):
“On March 17, 1902, the entire crew, save one, of the Monomoy Point life-saving station, lost their lives in a brave attempt to rescue the crew of the barge Wadena, stranded on the shoals off the Point. The tragedy created a profound sensation along the entire Atlantic seaboard. The feeling was especially tense in Boston and its immediate neighborhood, where the sum of nearly fifty thousand dollars was promptly raised by voluntary subscription for the relief of the families of the victims of the disaster. Captain James was deeply affected by the catastrophe, and seemed to realize as never before the perilous nature of his calling. Two days later, with a northeast gale blowing, he called out his crew to boat drill in the self-bailing lifeboat at the unusually early hour of seven o’clock in the morning, as if to reassure himself of its capabilities in a high surf and rough sea, as well as of the proficiency of his crew. They launched the boat, and Captain James, taking the steering oar, maneuvered in the surf and boisterous sea for more than an hour — an exercise which more severely taxed his own strength and endurance than those of any of his crew. The drill was very satisfactory, and the Captain expressed his great gratification both with the behavior of the boat in freeing itself of the torrents of water which boarded it, and with the skill of the men. At length he gave the orders for landing, and when the boat grounded upon the beach opposite the station he sprang out upon the wet sand and, glancing at the sea a moment, remarked to his men, ” The tide is ebbing.” These were his last words, but little did he know how true they were for him, for as he uttered them, he fell dead upon the beach. As the ^ exact moment of the turn of the tide is all but imperceptible, so neither Joshua James nor those about him perceived that the tide of his life had turned until his noble spirit had taken its flight. And so the last anxiety of this gentle, loving man, whose whole life had been devoted to service and sacrifice for others, was that he and those under his charge might be thoroughly prepared to render the most efficient aid to their fellow-beings in distress whenever occasion should arise.”
I would always take a moment when passing the area on Monomoy point where the Wadena Tragedy occurred to remember those brave men! Thanks for honoring those men and letting their memory live on!