Capt. Elmer F. Mayo, “The Hero of Monomoy,” was born in Chatham, and is forty years of age. From boyhood he has been a boatman, fisherman, anchor dragger, a substitute at the life-saving stations on Cape Cod, and wrecker along the shores near Monomoy, and is well accustomed to the perils and rigors incident to work of that kind.
Among the boatmen and wreckers along the Chatham and Monomoy shores he has always been regarded as an A No. 1 boatman, skilled in the art and science of handling boats in the surf, and absolutely fearless. His father was the first keeper of the Chatham Station.
Upon the discovery of gold in the Klondike region a few years ago, Mayo joined a party of prospectors, and went to the Copper River country. He remained there but a short time, returning to Cape Cod and resuming his former occupation.
At the time of the Monomoy disaster, he was on board the barge Fitzpatrick, near by the stranded barge Wadena, in company with Captain Mallows of Chatham, and the captain of the barge.
The Fitzpatrick had stranded at the time the Wadena went on the shoals, and Mayo and Mallows were aboard arranging to float the craft. They had remained on board the Fitzpatrick over night, the same as those on board the Wadena, so as to be on hand early in the morning to begin the work.
There was a small fourteen-foot dory alongside the Fitzpatrick, and the night before the fatal disaster, the wind freshening up, Mayo hauled the dory aboard, made some thole pins, and got a pair of oars ready for use should bad weather oblige them to go ashore.
CAPT. ELMER F. MAYO, THE HERO OF MONOMOY, AND SURFMAN ELLIS, WHOM HE RESCUED.
Captain Mayo standing.
The oars were too long for the small craft, and Mayo cut a piece off each of them. The wind blew a gale during the night preceding the disaster, and there was considerable rough water around the barge the next morning. The craft was not leaking, however, and there seemed no cause for alarm. A thick fog swept in over the shoals in the morning, hiding the stranded sister barge Wadena from the view of those on the Fitzpatrick, and they were in ignorance of the fact that a signal of distress was flying in her rigging.