OLD HARBOR STATION.
This station, at the entrance of Chatham Old Harbor, has been in commission less than five years, during which time Keeper Doane and his crew have rescued twenty-one persons in their surf-boat and taken thirteen shipwrecked sailors ashore in the breeches-buoy. Of the whole number of vessels that met with disaster within the province of the station, but two were total wrecks, viz., the Elsie C. Smith of Gloucester, and the Commerce of Rockland, the latter foundering off the shore near the station.
OLD HARBOR STATION.
This station is provided with two surf-boats, two beach carts with guns, breeches-buoys, etc., and a life-car. One of the surf-boats, a small one, is kept in a boathouse on the point of the beach, about a half mile from the station, where it can be quickly brought into use for rescue work in the harbor and bay. The other surf-boat, the large one, for use in the open sea, is kept in the station. A horse which the government hires during the winter season is kept in a barn close to the station.
The surfmen from this station have a patrol north for a distance of two and one-half miles, meeting and exchanging checks with the surfmen from the Orleans Station. On the south patrol, which is about a mile, the surfmen use a time clock to register their patrolling of the beach at that point.
HEZEKIAH F. DOANE, KEEPER OF OLD HARBOR STATION.