Each month, an interesting aspect of the world’s oldest continuous maritime service will be highlighted. The men and women of the United States Coast Guard follow in the fine tradition of the brave mariners who have served before them. As sentinels and saviors of the seas, the United States Coast Guard proudly continues its commitment to honor, respect & devotion to duty to maintain their vigil – Semper Paratus.
The Hasty Demise of the Kate Scranton
The blinding blanket of wet and cold snow swept along the strand of Eaton’s Neck, New York, in a frigid fury. Despite the terrible conditions, William S. Terry, the Number 1 Surfman from the United States Lifesaving Service Eaton’s Neck Station, trudged onward along the snow covered tundra of the coastline amidst the tortuous torrent of the gale. His gait was as steady as his resolve to his solemn, and often thankless, duty to those mariners who might need his watchful weather weary eyes. Though his thick sweater and sou’wester shielded him from some of the cold March dipped gale-forced winds, his bearded face, and exposed hands dutifully clutching a rifle, were numbed to the proverbial bones. Then, roughly a mile or so from the station on his trek, he spotted a stricken schooner in the shallows in the waters of the Long Island Sound. Terry raised his rifle into the air and pulled the trigger to summon his fellow lifesavers. The report of the shot also echoed across the breaking waves in the hopes of reaching the men stranded aboard the unknown vessel. Terry, awaiting the response of his fellow crewmen, scanned the schooner and, despite the blinding snow, could make out the yawl being lowered to the water’s edge. Though the schooner appeared no worse for the wear, the men appeared to be making a break for shore. Terry, maintaining his watch along the lonely strand, hoped that their efforts were made in good judgement and awaited the opportunity to render succor to those who appeared, in his humble and trained eyes, hastily abandoning the stricken schooner.
Aboard the schooner, within sight of shore, Captain Charles Valentine L. Bates watched as his four crew scrambled over the gunwale, one by one, into the schooner’s yawl. The men, including Mate Oliver Christerman, a twenty-four year old Norwegian, George Upther, the schooner’s cook, aged thirty-six, and Arthur Hand and Frederick Smith, both seaman, bounded haphazardly into the water-shipping small boat. Captain Bates held the yawl’s painter as the men scrambled to begin to row toward the safety of the shoreline within their sight through the blinding wind-blown snowfall. As the yawl began to make progress through the rough water, Captain Bates watched in horror as the craft began sinking lower and lower to the surface of the water. The yawl was taking on water and slowly slipping below the wind-whipped waters of the Long Island Sound.
Despite the frantic nature of the current situation, the previous twenty-four hours of the first voyage of the season from the chilled, but calm waters of Sag Harbor, New York, bound for Edgewater, New Jersey, via the waters of the Long Island Sound, had been serene. With sails full and running at a good clip, the schooner in ballast was making excellent time as she was heading to the Watchease Factory to take on a cargo of coal. As she reached roughly five miles northeast of Middleground Light, the overcast skies unleashed a heavy downfall of snow. The winds began to increase and Captain Bates ordered all hands to take up lookout duties in the decreasing conditions of the gale. Still skimming across the slate gray waters at nearly ten knots, with his full compliment of canvas still unleashed and capturing the heavy breaths of the snow-swollen storm, the schooner raced hastily along her with the Captain’s goal of reaching the relative safety of the harbor at Eaton’s Neck. Though his charge was making good time, he had little reference to his relative position. His rush to refuge would quickly land him, his men, and his charge, the schooner Kate Scranton, in a worse situation than the storm’s snow-kissed licks that the men had thus encountered. As the look-outs bellowed that the shallows were dead ahead, Captain Bates ordered the sails quickly furled and the anchors heaved into the water. The anchors dragged along the bottom. Though the schooner began to slow, her forward momentum, coupled with the raging sea conditions of the Long Island Sound, eased her closer to the coastline. Then the keel of the Kate Scranton began to pound against the bottom with each passing swell, sending a shrill report through the wooden schooner like a heartbeat of a dying soul fearing the end of its life. The men began to panic and through the wind-swept snowfall, the craggy coastline of relief became tantalizingly close to reality.
Despite Captain Bate’s plan to wait out the storm aboard the schooner, Mate Christerman, the two seamen, Hand and Smith, along with Upther, the cook, decided to make their escape to terra firma. Water had pooled from the stormy waters into the yawl and the men removed the boat’s plug to empty her. Though Captain Bates ordered the men to ensure that the plug was replaced and secured once she had been relieved of her standing water, the hurried activity of the four men to launch and leap into the yawl in the pitching waters dimmed the situational awareness critical in their own survival. As the yawl made her way toward the shore, the error to replace the boat’s plug began to sink the men’s plans for rescue from their plight. Unable to stop the influx of the seawater, Christerman and Upther dove into the frigid waters. The two seamen, attempting to bail water overboard and free from the yawl with their bare hands, remained in the sinking little boat. Christerman began to strike out amidst the waves back to the schooner. Upther turned and began swimming toward the shoreline. The yawl, wallowing in the waves, made little headway forward.
Captain Bates yelled out to Mate Christerman to swim harder to the schooner. Heavily laden by his now fully soaked winter gear, he was having difficulty remaining above water. Captain Bates threw flotsam into the water and yelled through the howling winds for him to use it to buoy himself up above the water. Christerman, deciding to give up on his return to the schooner, turned around and began swimming shoreward. The wooden make-shift lifebuoy floated away as the Mate strode through the frigid waters. Upther, closer to the shallows, began to slow. Captain Bates yelled out to both to fight onward. Mate Christerman also slowed and then, in an instant, disappeared beneath the surface. Upther, nearing the shoreline, slowed, but labored onward. Terry, who had now been joined by several of his crew from the United States Lifesaving Service Station at Eaton’s Neck, rushed into the shallows to offer assistance. Upther finally gained a foothold on the bottom and stood up. He had reached the salvation of the shoreline. As the rescuers raced toward him, he stopped and then fell forward into the water. Pulled from the water within seconds, he was dragged onto the beach and despite efforts to revive him, he had died. As other lifesavers urged the two men in the yawl onward, the water-logged boat capsized in the surf and spilled the two seamen into the water. The lifesavers dragged them from the shallows and rushed them to the warmth of the station for succor. Terry, maintaining his vigil for the missing man, had signaled to Captain Bates to standfast and await rescue. With the two seamen resting and receiving dry clothes at the station, the remaining lifesavers returned to the strand and set up a breeches buoy rig to pull the remaining skipper from the stranded schooner. Within a short time, Captain Bates, safely secured in the breeches buoy gear, was pulled to shore, having been dragged through and over the surfline that had sent two of his men to their deaths and two of his crew to within a gasp of their very last breaths. The gale of March 1896 then sent the lifeless body of Mate Christerman ashore where he was recovered by the men of the United States Lifesaving Service.
The next tide sent the stranded schooner ashore and the Kate Scranton was no more than a mangled mess of a formerly staunch and seaworthy merchantman along the strand. Upther was returned via railroad for burial in Sag Harbor, New York along with Captain Bates and the surviving seamen. An investigation into the wreck of the schooner and the loss of two of her crew was subsequently conducted by Captain Maguire of the United States Revenue Cutter Service. It was clearly evident that the captain was at fault for running his charge at such a high rate of speed in poor visibility and that the efforts by the panicked crew to launch the yawl, without her boat plug secured in place, had been done in haste. Though blame had been assigned, it did little to relieve the loss of the two men, Oliver Christerman, the mate, and George Upther, the schooner’s cook.
The insurance of safety at sea is never guaranteed despite the ardent efforts of prudent mariners and sailors who follow the guidance of those who have braved the seas before them. Though the best mariners and their efforts can be dashed by the serendipity of the sea and all that she maintains in her murky depths of situations, hastily decided actions can oftentimes render a bad situation worse. As was with the grounding of the Kate Scranton, several factors of failed responsible actions had led the crew into a life or death scenario that was further exacerbated by the loss of situational awareness.
While the actions of the United States Lifesaving Service during the rescue of the stricken schooner Kate Scranton were undermined by hasty decisions rendered by those aboard the grounded vessel, they endeavored to render aid regardless. Today, the men and women of the United States Coast Guard, through a variety of public service, vessel inspections, educational courses, and licensure programs, work tirelessly to aid mariners and sailors as they set out to sea, to do so safely and with a solid foundation of education and training. The sea, an ever-changing watery seascape of situations, remains at the focal point of efforts in a variety of missions and one of the most timeless missions is to render aid to those who, in a moment of time that renders them teetering between life and death, call out for succor by those of the United States Coast Guard, who like those who served before them since 1790, remain always ready as sentinels and saviors of the seas.
About the Author – Adam M. Grohman is the researcher and author of over thirty-six books which capture the rich history of our maritime environs and United States Coast Guard history.
For more information about scheduling a lecture or to purchase any of his available titles, please visit www.lulu.com/spotlight/adamgrohman or email grohmandive@hotmail.com.