"I want to tell you right now, we missed our guess when we supposed that Chesapeake Bay was being coddled by any of the softening influences of the gentle springtime! It was only lying low! It took us three days to get to the site of the lighthouse, which was marked by a buoy. We reached there on a quiet and peaceful evening, the sort that landlubber poets write about. A little after sundown it began to breeze up, and by four bells of the first watch, there was a stiffish wind, which at midnight began to climb into half a gale.
"Then the sea began to rise. It only takes a capful of wind to make things nasty on the bay, and that iron cylinder began to toss like a cork. We'd left four men aboard the cylinder and by half an hour after midnight they were pumping for their lives. There was a big searchlight on the tug and Father came tumbling up from below and ordered the searchlight turned on to the cylinder.
"I tell you, that was a sight. There was nothing to be seen in the smother but the great black iron rim rolling savagely, the white water spouting about it, and, as it heaved above the waves, the searchlight showed its black sides with the water streaming down. There, clustered at the pumps, were the four men, working like a bunch of madmen and shouting for help as the cylinder rose above the water, strangling and clinging to the pump-handles like grim death as she went under. It was for their lives that they were working, for if ever half a dozen tons of water should slop over the side of the black monster, it would sink straight to the bottom, and so great would be the suction that there was not the slightest chance that any of them would ever come up alive.
"That was one time I saw Father in action. He yelled for the lifeboat and got volunteers. Out of the blank confusion he brought order, and in less than two minutes the lifeboat was over the side with twelve men aboard, Father one of them. The little boat rose on the waves like a feather and the third wave dashed it against the rim of the cylinder. As the frail craft crushed like an eggshell, every man leaped for the edge, hanging on to the sharp iron edge like grim death.
"Down came the cylinder again and as she careened, every man clambered on. The added weight made her top-heavy and she began to ship water badly. Four of the fresh men were put at the pumps to relieve the others who were exhausted by their efforts.
Courtesy of McClure's Magazine.
"The Iron Rim Rolling Savagely."
The cylinder of the Smith's Point Lighthouse caught in a storm while being towed down Chesapeake Bay.