Richard Etheridge, 1842-1900

Richard Etheridge, 1842-1900. “In Behalf of Humanity”. , In 1874, the U.S. Treasury Department , extended its network of lifesaving stations to North Carolina. Employment was open to qualified men regardless of color, but it was seasonal. Pay was low. Risks were high. When the small crews were not performing drills or maintenance, they scanned the ocean by day, patrolled the beach at night and in foul weather, and rescued mariners using little more than rowboats and raw courage. Black members of integrated "checkerboard" crews could expect low status and additional domestic duties. Undaunted, Etheridge chose to serve his country again. He reported to the Bodie Island Station in 1875 as Surfman #6, at the bottom of the roster., Despite strong competition , for very few jobs, the Lifesaving Service struggled with scandal and controversy, politics and personalities. In 1880, after an official inquiry into the wreck of the schooner M&E Henderson, Superintendent Sumner Kimball began a district-wide shakeup. He dismissed the keeper at Pea Island and replaced him with Etheridge, whom inspectors had described as “a man among men” and “one of the best surfmen on this part of the coast.” Then Kimball ended local integration by exchanging white surfmen at Pea Island with blacks from other stations. Etheridge filled the final two vacancies with new hires. His reconstituted black crew, all experienced watermen, included fellow Civil War veterans William Davis and George Riley Midgett. After a suspicious fire, Etheridge and his men helped build a new station while occupying the undamaged stable., He demanded excellence , and sometimes drilled his men 10 hours a day. Their preparation proved invaluable when a hurricane drove the schooner E.S. Newman aground two miles from the station the night of October 11, 1896. Circumstances rendered their rescue equipment useless, so the men swam out in pairs, tethered to shore, and pulled survivors one by one through wreckage-strewn breakers. Surfman Theodore Meekins reputedly made every trip. For saving all nine on board, the Pea Is and crew received a posthumous Gold Lifesaving Medal after a 100-year delay., Etheridge died on duty , in May 1900, three months before the state where he had once held public office formally denied blacks the right to vote., E.S. Newman , A few days after the hurricane that drove the E.S. Newman ashore, Captain Sylvester Gardiner and his crew searched the beaches anything they could salvage from the wreck. They recovered little of value, and the 393-ton schooner was declared a total loss. Captain Gardiner found the ship’s nameplate amid the wreckage. , E.S. Newman photograph courtesy of Mystic Seaport, Mistic, CT., Etheridge’s gravesite was lost for a generation. , Early in World War II, German U-boats sank many American and Allied ships within sight of the Outer Banks. The U.S. Navy was consequently eager to finish construction of Auxiliary Air Station Manteo (now Dare County Regional Airport), an antisubmarine base. Rather than rebury Etheridge and his family, workers hurriedly laid their headstones down and built the facility's infirmary over them. The cemetery came to light again in 1974, during demolition of the building to make way for the Aquarium., Would you serve your country if you could not vote?, (captions) , Pea Island crew, 1896. , L-R: Richard Etheridge, Benjamin Bowser, Lewis Wescott, Dormon Pugh, Theodore Meekins, Stanley Wise, and William Irving. Photograph courtesy of the Outer Banks History Center., Painting of Richard Etheridge by James Melvin.