Ocean City 'Surfmen'

From Primedia Publications

Ocean City 'Surfmen'
A Maryland Museum Honors the History of Life-Savers with Muscle and Long Boats

By Earl Shores

When you walk into the "boat room" of Ocean City, Maryland's Life-Saving Station Museum, the forgotten history of brave men comes alive. Whether you picture the station's six-member crew rescuing an imperiled vessel by dragging a 1,500-pound apparatus cart across miles of waterlogged beach or rowing a wooden surfboat through freezing, gale-driven waves, one word comes to mind—courage. But for the "surfmen" of the United States Life-Saving Service, it was just another day at the office.

The first Ocean City Life-Saving Station was built in 1878, just three years after the first lots were marked off on a remote stretch of Assateague Island beach 150 miles southeast of Baltimore. "Smart" Maryland businessmen of the day viewed the idea of an oceanfront resort as pure folly, but now on summer weekends Ocean City often becomes "Maryland's second largest city." Its population swells to over 250,000 as visitors from as far away as Ohio come to walk the boardwalk, ride the rides and take in the sun, surf and sand.

But back in the 1870s, the beaches of the Atlantic Coast were known more for shipwrecks than sun-worshiping. Hundreds of lives were lost because, with long stretches of uninhabited barrier islands, a distressed ship was at the mercy of the elements—and of people known as "wreckers" who lived along the shore. Their motivation for "rescuing" a vessel was to rob the passengers and plunder the ship.


	It's hard to imagine dragging this one-ton boat and its wooden carriage miles down the beach, then climbing in and rowing through frigid and frothing seas to a sinking vessel.

Attempts to organize life-saving operations along U.S. coastlines began in 1871, but it wasn't until 1878—after 98 lost their lives in the wreck of the Huron off the coast of North Carolina—that Congress created the United States Life-Saving Service.

A larger Ocean City Life-Saving Station replaced the old one in 1891. By that time there were 13 stations in Life-Saving District Five, stretching from Cape Henlopen, Delaware, to Cape Charles, Virginia. Between 1878 and 1915, when the Life-Saving Service became the Coast Guard, only 34 lives were lost in the district while more than 7,500 people were rescued. Today, the Ocean City and Lewes, Delaware, stations still stand to attest to this amazing record.

The Ocean City station's whitewashed, two-story, wood-framed building barely escaped demolition in 1977 when some influential Ocean City residents persuaded city officials to save it. A museum committee was formed, city funds were allocated for restoration, and the station was moved from its original Caroline Street location to the south end of Ocean City's three-mile-long boardwalk. It's now one of the town's oldest buildings.

Ocean City life-savers responded to over 260 distress calls between 1878 and 1915, and the authentic items displayed in the exhibit "A Wreck in the Offing" show you how those rescues were performed. Near the front of the room sits an apparatus cart, used if a ship was close enough to shore to be reached by a lifeline shot from a Lyle gun. Passengers were then taken off the ship in a Breeches Buoy (a hanging life preserver with canvas pants) or, if the surf was rough, a metal torpedo-shaped life-saving car.

Dominating the room is a more spectacular method of rescue—an 18-foot surfboat. It's hard to imagine dragging this one-ton boat and its wooden carriage miles down the beach, then climbing in and rowing through frigid and frothing seas to a sinking vessel. Yet the rescue accounts and pictures displayed on the walls of the room detail the stamina and courage of Ocean City surfmen who did just that.

Other rooms on the first floor illuminate Ocean City's history. The "meeting room" displays pictures of the '33 hurricane and the great 1962 Ash Wednesday storm, while local marine creatures make their home in four big aquariums in the "mess room."

Climbing the narrow wooden steps to the second floor brings you to a room filled with artifacts (including a wooden leg) from local wrecks, and another upstairs room offers a look at bathing suit fashion history, from wool bloomers to the bikini. The largest upstairs room, called the "hospitality room," contains models of Ocean City's past and present landmarks. The most impressive model is the three-story Mayflower Hotel, complete with beach, boardwalk, and even pillowcases hanging in the laundry room. In another corner of the room is an oversized human figure which, depending on your age and familiarity with Ocean City, is either frightening or funny. This is "Laughing Sal" whose recorded laughter once invited all to enter her boardwalk funhouse.

Museum Director Suzanne Hurley has published an excellent book on the town's history. Her book and others about the Life-Saving Service are for sale in the museum gift shop.

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Earl Shores is a Columbia, Maryland, freelance writer who as a child spent many summer nights listening to the late Annie Bunting's oral accounts of Ocean City history. Annie's husband, Levin, was awarded a gold life-saving medal in 1924 and is pictured in the Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum.

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