The story of this disaster is still fresh in the public mind.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LIFE-SAVING SERVICE ON CAPE COD.
The establishment of the United States Life-Saving Service on Cape Cod dates back but thirty years, which time also marks the reorganization, extension, and beginning of its efficiency in the United States. While as early as 1797 the town of Truro sold to the United States Government a tract of land upon which to erect the first lighthouse on Cape Cod,—Highland Light, so called,—it was not until half a century later that the government began to provide means for the relief of mariners wrecked upon its coasts, and seventy-five years afterwards that the first United States Life-Saving Station was erected on the shores of Cape Cod.
The Massachusetts Humane Society, originally formed in 1786, and incorporated for general purposes of benevolence a few years later, was the first to attempt organized relief for shipwrecked seafarers in the United States as well as upon Cape Cod.
ONE OF THE FIRST LIFE-SAVING CREWS.
The Society first began its work of rendering assistance to shipwrecked mariners by building huts on many of the desolate sections of the coast. These huts were for the shelter of shipwrecked persons who might reach the shore. The first building of this kind was erected on Lovell’s Island in Boston Harbor in 1807. Later, the Society established the first life-boat station at Cohasset, subsequently erecting others along the coast, and extending its good work to the shores of Cape Cod.
While the Society relied solely upon volunteer crews to man these life-boats in times of disaster, its efforts in saving life and property were of great value, and both the state and general government tendered it pecuniary aid at various times. When the government extended the life-saving service to Cape Cod, the Society was relieved of its burden of protecting that dangerous coast, thus enabling it to better provide for other sections of the coast of Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Humane Society may be considered the parent of the United States Life-Saving Service. The Society is one of the oldest in the world. It originated its coast service more than thirty-six years before the English did, while the French service dates its birth much later.
In 1845, a few years before Congress took steps for providing means for rendering assistance to wrecked vessels along the coasts of the United States, the Society had eighteen stations on the Massachusetts coast, with boats and mortars for throwing life lines to stranded vessels, in addition to numerous huts of refuge.