Podcast: The Black Surfmen Behind One of the Greatest Water Rescues Ever
Pea Island is a wildlife refuge, and one of the most untouched parts of the Outer Banks. But a century ago, this small piece of land was the site of one of the most remarkable water rescues to date. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we visit the Outer Banks of North Carolina and unearth some surprising history about a place known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic because of how many shipwrecks have occurred there. It was also home to early efforts at lifesaving and a precursor to the U.S. Coast Guard. Kelly McEvers: If you drive down the coast of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, you get to a point where you get the feeling you're going nowhere. You're on a single-lane road and civilization just starts to disappear. There's fewer and fewer houses, no more restaurants, sand to the left, sand to the right with just a few beach grasses poking through. This is Pea Island. And today it is a wildlife refuge, one of the most untouched parts of the Outer Banks. And out here you will see a sign. It's nothing special. All it says is the name of a bridge. Captain Richard Etheridge Bridge. It's the kind of sign you might just drive past without even thinking about it. But there is a story behind that sign. A hundred years ago, this small piece of land in the Outer Banks was the site of one of the most amazing water rescues ever. And it was led by a person and a team who, until recently, were mostly unknown. I'm Kelly McEvers, and this is Atlas Obscura. A celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places. And today's episode is brought to you in partnership with the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau. Today's story is about how just 30 years after the Civil War ended, a black man led one of the most successful life-saving teams in the country's history. And how their incredible rescue required them to go off book. That's after this. Richard Etheridge, left, with his crew in front of Pea Island lifesaving station, circa 1896. Public Domain If you visit the Outer Banks today, it is clear you are in vacation town, right? Cute bookstores, mini golf courses, big houses for rent right on the ocean. But in the late 1800s, the Outer Banks was a different world. Dave Zoby: They thought of the beachfront as like wasteland. They thought of the beachfront as a place you wouldn't want to live. Kelly McEvers: This is Dave Zoby. He's a writer, and he used to visit the Outer Banks as a kid with his family during the summer. The Outer Banks, if you don't know them, are a series of barrier islands, which means they're basically a long strip of sand that runs parallel to the actual coastline. Like this outer buffer zone between the coast and the Atlantic Ocean. Which means, especially back in the day, things could get rough. Dave Zoby: It was a hard place to live, you know. There was malaria, there was storms, there was blowing sand everywhere. Before the bridges were built, the only way to get out there was by boat. Kelly McEvers: But the sandy strip of land was always shifting. And in the days before radar, sailors couldn't see them or see when a storm was approaching. Dave Zoby: So there were ships driven ashore. Sometimes they found dead bodies on the beach because people washed up. Sometimes 300 people would lose their lives. The only... metaphor we could come up with is maybe the analogy would be a modern plane crash. Kelly McEvers: At one point, there were these two big disasters that really got people's attention. The first was in 1877, when a ship named the Huron sank just 200 yards off the North Carolina shore. Ninety-eight out of 134 people onboard died. Less than two months later, another ship called the Metropolis went down. Another 85 people died. That's when the story of how dangerous the Outer Banks were got out. Dave Zoby: Because the newspapers loved that kind of sensationalism, and they sent newspaper men down from Norfolk, and they got to the beaches in time to see people dig into graves. So it was really grisly, and the country was paying attention. And when the country started paying attention to these disasters, they said, these deaths didn't need to happen. We needed to do something about all these Americans just drowning right there within sight of the coast. Kelly McEvers: So Congress established a rescue service called the Life Saving Service, basically a precursor to the Coast Guard. They built life-saving stations along the coast and staffed them nine months out of the year. Crews came from the mainland to live and work at these stations. One of those stations was on that empty strip of land that is now a wildlife sanctuary, Pea Island. And it was staffed by a team that would turn out to be one of their best. David Wright: Richard Etheridge was the first keeper of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station, which was the first and for a long time believed to be the only all-Black station in the history of the Lifesaving Service. Kelly McEvers: This is David Wright. He's a writer and professor at the University of Illinois. He and Dave Zoby wrote a book together called “Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers.” Zoby learned about Richard Etheridge one day when he was visiting the Outer Banks Aquarium. He saw a photo of Etheridge and his crew on display. Zoby mentioned the photo to Wright, and they were both fascinated by this person they'd never heard of. So they started digging. Richard Etheridge was born into slavery in 1842 on North Carolina's Roanoke Island. Zoby and Wright figured out that he was actually the son of his former enslaver. Richard learned to read and write. He became an activist and fought for the Union Army in the Civil War. David Wright: He'd written this letter that was just really moving about the mistreatment of Blacks back on Roanoke Island. So he was, you know, I had his rank. I had his unit. We could trace his unit. They were in it. They were fully in the Civil War. Kelly McEvers: After the war, Richard came back to Roanoke Island. He joined the Life Saving Service and started working as a low-ranking crew member. The service called them surfmen. But then the keeper of the Pea Island station messed up handling a bad wreck and he was let go. So in 1880, just a few years after reconstruction, Richard became the first ever black man appointed to run a life-saving station. But not everybody was happy with this. David Wright: When Richard got the head job, the white crewman left, which was completely predictable. And then he took the remaining Black surfmen from the rest of the Outer Banks stations and brought them in, and that formed the all-Black crew. Kelly McEvers: And then, shortly after Richard's appointment, the station of this all-Black crew was burned down. Zoby and Wright think they know who did it. David Wright: It turns out that the arsonists were his cousins. Kelly McEvers: Remember, Richard's father was his enslaver. So his cousins were two white men. They worked at a nearby life-saving station, and they were trying to get better jobs for themselves. David Wright: They were aspiring to these positions, and then all of a sudden, their former slave, former family slave, gets appointed keeper. So when the life-saving service came from D.C. and investigated, it turns out that it was these two cousins who were very likely had been responsible for the fire that set it. Kelly McEvers: It was a setback, but the Pea Island life-saving crew soon got a chance to show that they knew what they were doing. It's October 1896. Richard and his crew are at their station. David Wright: They're out there on Pea Island, which is fairly isolated, and a storm blows in. Kelly McEvers: The storm washes away the entire beach, like basically no more sand. Crews in the other stations decide to get in their lifeboats and row to the mainland. David Wright: Richard Etheridge decided to stay. And then sure enough, in the middle of the night, one of the crewmen thought he saw a light. So he summons Richard Etheridge. They see a red rocket, which was a sign of distress. Kelly McEvers: At the time, there were two main ways of rescuing people. One, get in a rowboat and paddle out there. But that's pretty risky in a big storm. Two, the more difficult way was called a beach apparatus. The crew would haul a giant cart with what is essentially a cannon, officially called a Lyle gun, onto the beach. They'd plant an anchor in the sand to keep everything steady and then use the cannon to fire a line to the sinking ship. Then they would set up what basically looks like an old school clothesline and reel people back into the shore. David Wright: The night of the E.S. Newman, he has to make a decision. Do we take the boat or do we take the beach apparatus? And Etheridge decided on the beach apparatus. Why, we'll never know. But he decided that it was probably going to be the best way to rescue the crew. Kelly McEvers: So Richard and the crew start dragging this cart, which, by the way, weighs a literal ton, about a mile and a half through the sand and water until they are across from the ship. David Wright: They can see it. It's not that far off the coast. It's maybe 70 yards off the coast. And they can hear the people on the ship, like, raise this you know, cry of joy when they realize that lifesavers are there. Kelly McEvers: Richard and crew get ready to fire the Lyle gun with the line out to the ship when they realize there's a problem. In order to fire the gun, they need to dig an anchor in the sand to keep everything stable. But remember, the beach was washed out. They can't plant the anchor, which means they can't fire the gun. David Wright: And so in that moment, you either... take your crew and go a mile and a half back to the station and come back with the boat or you try to find another solution. What he realizes is that the Newman is, it's coming apart, right? And so there's no time to go back for the boat. So what he decides to do, Richard Etheridge, he decides that what they can do is two men lashed together and secured with another line can take the line out to the Newman and The nature of the Outer Banks is that it's super showy. Sometimes it'll be knee-deep, sometimes it'll be waist-deep, sometimes you'll have to swim. So between sort of running as best they can, walking, trudging forward, swimming at times, they're going to carry the line out to the ship. The other problem, though, is because the ship is coming apart, there's like wood planks that are spiked with nails and other things in the surf. Kelly McEvers: Two men volunteer to brave the surf and take the line out to the boat. In all, they make nine trips back and forth. And the Pea Island life-saving crew saves every single person on board. So, the rescuers bring the crew back to the station. David Wright: This all-white, largely all-white crew, I'm sure, with these Black surfers in this very tight space. When the storm blew over, the captain of the ship went back to the scene, and he ended up finding the sideboard that said E.S. Newman, and he gave it to the crew to thank them. Kelly McEvers: Someone took a photo of the crew, all lined up. And then? David Wright: That was just it. That was it. And then, you know, they got up the next day and they did their duty and they did more rescues. Kelly McEvers: And that was kind of the end of the story. Just a few years after the rescue of the E.S. Newman, Richard Etheridge got sick. It was so bad, the crew couldn't move him. And in 1900, when he was 58, Richard died inside the Pea Island Lifesaving Station. It's easy to hear the story of Richard Etheridge and think, wow, this crew of heroic men pushed past some major racial and social barriers of the time. But things don't always shake out so neatly. In some ways, the Pea Island life-saving station opened the door for Black folks. But in other ways, it just led to more segregation. Dave Zoby says over the years, all Black watermen, no matter how talented they were, were sent to work at the Pea Island station. And then we're just stuck there. Dave Zoby: And in 1915, when it became the Coast Guard, they still had this one Black station there along the coast of North Carolina. And most of the Coast Guard people, it was segregated, and you didn't have that much mobility. And many of the men at Pea Island, the surf men, could take the test, could qualify to be boatswain mates, and should be able to go on and become officers. They weren't able to do it. Kelly McEvers: The Pea Island life-saving station kept operating with an all-Black crew until 1947, when it was decommissioned. The building was dismantled. But just because the story is imperfect doesn't mean it's not worth knowing. Today, Richard Etheridge's story is coming back to life across the Outer Banks. The photo of the crew after the rescue hangs in the aquarium. That's the one Dave Zoby saw and how he and David Wright started their research. There are plaques around the islands and a museum about the Pea Island crew. As for Pea Island itself, it has been repurposed into a wildlife refuge. It's one of the most pristine spots in the Outer Banks. In the winter, giant flocks of snow geese hang out there. If you want to feel the full story of Richard Etheridge and his crew and imagine what it might have been like for them to be holding watch over this narrow strip of land, do what Zoby and Wright recently did one night. David Wright: Zoby and I one night, we weren't supposed to, but when we were doing our research, we wanted to get more of an experience of it. And we thought we'd do something akin to a beach patrol one night. Dave Zoby: We decided to go out there and walk the beaches at night, because that's what the Pea Island surfmen had to do. If you were a surfman, you had to patrol the beach. And we went out there at night, and the first thing that happened was we got attacked by all kinds of horse flies. But when we got out there and walked the beach, it was pretty spooky. There's no lights out there. There's no houses out there, because it's a wildlife refuge. David Wright: I mean, I was with Zoby, and he's like a big, sturdy guy. I mean, it's scary. I mean, those guys were just walking the beach. I was like, you know, a little afraid, no, but... on watch, uneasy. It was a rough life. I could not have done it. That was a long-winded way of saying I could not have done it. Dave Zoby: We were trying to imagine what it would have been like for these men to do this. It is one of the few places in the Outer Banks where you can go and get a glimpse of what it used to be like. Of all the places down there, it's the one I think that retains the feeling that you might have had back in those days. Kelly McEvers: In 1996, Richard Etheridge and crew were posthumously awarded the highest Coast Guard award, the Gold Lifesaving Medal. And today, there are a bunch of ways you can learn more about them while visiting the Outer Banks. The Pea Island Cook House, which used to stand next to the Lifesaving Station, has been moved to Manteo on Roanoke Island. It's now a museum. Then there's the North Carolina Aquarium, where the photo of the Pea Island Lifesaving Crew still hangs. and where Richard Etheridge is buried. There's also the historic Island Farm on Roanoke Island and Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station, where you can watch a reenactment of a beach rescue using the Breach's buoy, aka the beach apparatus. And of course, you can visit Pea Island itself, check out the wildlife refuge that's there, and imagine what it would have been like to be a surfman patrolling the shores late at night. This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer. Our podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura and Sirius XM Podcasts. The production team for this episode includes Dylan Thuras, Doug Baldinger, Camille Stanley, Johanna Mayer, Manuela Morales, Jerome Campbell, Amanda McGowan, Alexa Lim, Casey Holford, and Luz Fleming. Our theme music is by Sam Tindall. I'm Kelly McIvers. Thanks for listening. See you next time.