The Longest Pull – Fall 1984
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The Great Lakes… 84% of the continent’s fresh water… a different story in every drop.
By Richard F. Palmer
Oilskins ripped to flapping strips, ice-coated sou’westers sagging to neck and shoulders, great boots dripping melting ice. Nine men stood in a farm kitchen by the shore of Lake Ontario in December, 1902, while about them on the spotless floor grew pools of water flecked with blood.
From an adjoining room wafted the odor of steaming food as the opening door disclosed slices of ham piled high, buttered bread, and coffee.
Creaking in his ice-covered garments like a medieval knight, one of the nine advanced stiffly to the table, seized a slice of ham like a bird of prey, and took great mouthfuls as a famished beast. His companions gaped at him, yet each, as he approached the food, did as he had done. It was the end of the epic pull of the U.S. Lifesaving Service; the rescue of the crew of the barge (former schooner) John R. Noyes.
Often, in the intervening years, the story has been reviewed, but never have the full facts been recounted – the 48-hour fast preceding that midnight meal; the efforts, almost brutal, which Capt. George N. Gray was forced to employ to save the rescued from freezing; the almost unbelievable endurance of those Coast Guardsmen on the longest pull in the most bitter weather the annals of that service can present.
Captain Gray, incapacitated by that endeavor, and his men have long since passed away. The last of the crew, Captain Lester L. Seymour, recounted the story many years later at his home in Ellisburg, New York. He was one of the younger members of the boat’s crew. He was in the Lifesaving Service and later the Coast Guard for 30 years.
Seven of the nine men under Captain George N. Gray of the Charlotte Lifesaving Station, who made the epic rescue from the barge NOYES in Lake Ontario, December 14 and 15, 1902, received the Coast Guard Gold Medal “in testimony of heroic deeds in saving life from the perils of the sea. This photo was taken of the crew at Charlotte in 1904. From left are Ira Palmer, George Henderson, Vernon Downing, Captain George N. Gray, Lester L. Seymour, Harrington and Tryon (not members of the 1902 crew); Dele Rose, and Frank Chapman. Image retrieved from the Inland Seas 1984 Fall issue.
Captain Seymour was a member of the crew at the Charlotte (Rochester, N.Y.) Lifesaving Station in December, 1902, under Captain Gray of Oswego. The seven others on duty were Mial E. Eggleston of Ellisburg, George Henderson of Mexico, Frank Chapman of Charlotte, Ira Palmer, Charles Eastwood, Dele Rose and Vernon Downing of Cleveland, Ohio.
“I remember how we were lined up to go to supper,” Captain Seymour recalled. “It was the 14th of December, and we were to close the station next day and go to our homes for the winter. We always had supper at 5 o’clock. As we lined up, Captain Gray stepped out. ‘Go right on and get your chow,’ he called. ‘I think we’ve got a call.’
“He went in his office to get more information, and he had them place a couple of flat cars on the railroad Y at Windsor (near Charlotte). We were all excited, and we hung around for the latest news. Didn’t go in to supper. Later we wished we had. He called a team to take the boat to Windsor, and it was taken from there to Lakeside (several miles to the east), where we launched off shore that night.
“The morning of December 13 two steamers had cleared Charlotte with coal for Canada. Each had a barge in tow. The Canadian steamer Resolute was towing the full rigged schooner Abbie L. Andrews. The John E. Hall was towing the schooner John R. Noyes. Captain Timothy Donovan of Oswego commanded the Hall, and his son commanded the Noyes.
“They got caught in a gale and snowstorm, and both steamers were forced to cast off their tows, being unable to make port with them. The Andrews got up canvas and ran the length of the lake, taking shelter at Port Dalhousie. They told us that at one moment she was so close to the Noyes the crew of the latter could almost jump on her deck. The Resolute got safely home but the Hall never was seen after parting with the Noyes.
“The Noyes had no sails. She fell into the seas. Those aboard believed they were blown the length of the lake and back, but they got over toward the American shore and a farmer saw the derelict from the heights, on the 14th of December, off Lakeside. There were four men and the mate’s wife, the cook, on board. The old man got this word. We drew the boat in a sleigh four miles to the lake and were pretty tired when we got it launched. We rowed around all that night and didn’t locate anything.
“We came back to shore and at dawn one of the men, I think George Henderson, went up on a windmill. He sighted something, but there was no certainty it was the barge, because the lake was full of ice and the boat, covered with ice, was the same color. But we launched and started out again.
“Before we left Charlotte Captain Gray had called Oswego for them to send a tug to meet us. Capt. Charley Ferris (and that was the name of the tug, too) was to get out. They carried coal across the ice and fueled her on the break- water, then something went wrong with the engines, so she never sailed. When we started out that morning we kept looking for the tug. There were driving clouds and every black one we saw the old man would say, ‘There’s the Ferris.’ Finally we got to seeing smoke westerly instead of southerly, and he would say, ‘Well, she ran by us and is coming back.’ Of course that cheered us up. We were pretty tired and hungry.
“Her rail was probably four feet wide with ice and they had cut tons off to lighten her. . . ”
“We kept on till we found the Noyes. Her rigging was solid ice up to the cross trees. Her rail was probably four feet wide with ice and they had cut tons off to lighten her and had cut away the bulwarks to let the water go across. Mial Eggleston and I went aboard to put life preservers on the crew. We got them all off into the life boat, the woman first. There was a little spaniel dog on the schooner. In such cases you can’t take anything from the boat, only the clothing the people have on. The old man was fond of dogs. Mial and I talked a little.
“‘Lift him in and let the old man throw him overboard if he wants to,’ said Mial.
“I’ll never forget Captain Gray’s look when we dropped the dog in the boat. It said, ‘You know better than that,’ but I’ve always said I believe that dog kept the woman from freezing to death on the pull back. She held him close to her on her lap all the way.
“On the oars between our hands the ” ice formed in a chunk higher than our fists.
“When we boarded the schooner we asked if they had anything to eat. Captain Donovan said all they had was some flour mixed with water they had cooked over a lamp. I got a chunk of it. It was (. . .) like stone.
“When we got back into the boat Mial reminded me of it and I put it on the bottom and brought my heel down on it. It broke into little pieces and we all had one. The little mouthful I got tasted sweet and nice.
“It was a question if we should go on to Canada. We were right in the center of the lake but we knew the American shore better and we decided to pull for it. They had built fires on the beach to guide us. It must have been 10 o’clock at night.
“It was an awful pull. We had a self bailing boat, but the water swept over us. We were covered with ice and the boat was encased in it. Every sea added to its weight. Our oilskins were ripped to shreds and our hats sagged down about our ears, one mass of ice and split down the center. On the oars, between our hands, ice formed in a chunk higher than our fists.
Schooner John R. Noyes. Image from the Alpena County George N. Fletcher Public Library.
“We kept alive pulling but the four men from the Noyes would have frozen but for Captain Gray. They never told how he kicked them to make them swing their arms and keep the blood circulating so they wouldn’t freeze.
“When we were nearly to shore we ran on a flat boulder. We couldn’t get off. The old man said somebody would have to go overboard. I remember thinking I couldn’t be any wetter, but that water was awful cold. Dele Rose got over and I was going over and we were to take the cook, but when Rose got over that lightened the boat enough to get off.
“We left around 5 o’clock at night. Got ashore about midnight the next day, and we had only been ashore in that time a few minutes that morning. We must have been pulling around 36 or 37 hours. I never yet heard of a longer pull and I have studied a lot of old records.
“The first farm we got to had prepared a nice supper. They were very particular how people were dressed to go in their dining room. When we came in we had on life preservers, frozen to us so we didn’t know they were on us. Our oilskins were in strips, and blood trickled down our sides where the ice had cut our arms and bodies.
“They opened the door into the dining room and I never smelled anything so good as that boiled ham. The first man reached over and took a slice in his hand and stuffed it into his mouth. I thought, ‘I never saw him act like that. Wonder what ails him?’ When I got within reach of that ham I did the same thing.
“Captain Gray and two others never recovered from the exposure.”
Sources
Oswego (N.Y.) Palladium, Dec. 16-18, 1902
Rochester Daily Democrat, Dec. 16-18, 1902
Official Reports of the U.S. Lifesaving Service concerning the wreck. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Miscellaneous newspaper clippings and materials in possession of Harvey Richardson, Adams, N.Y.
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