The collection offers a glimpse into the functionality of two United States Life-Saving Stations, one of the predecessors to the modern U.S. Coast Guard, on Maryland’s Atlantic coast. The collection includes the Keeper’s Reports from the Ocean City Life-Saving Station in Ocean City, Maryland and Wreck Reports from the North Beach Life-Saving Station on the Maryland portion of Assateague Island. The Keeper’s Reports offer a record of day to day duties in the early years of the Ocean City Station while the Wreck Reports document rescues and shipwrecks off Assateague Island in the early part of the twentieth century and the transition of the Life-Saving Service to the U.S. Coast Guard in 1915.

In June of 1878, the U.S. Congress passed an act creating the United States Life-Saving Service at the request of the American public who were frustrated by the disastrous and deadly shipwrecks along the United States’ coastlines and Great Lakes. The service was tasked with the rescuing of shipwreck victims and the assisting of any ship in distress along the coast. The act that Congress passed and put into law in 1878 called for the building of two Maryland Life-Saving Stations one at Ocean City  and one at the northern portion of Assateague Island as one already existed at the southern portion that being the Green Run Station.

The first Ocean City Life-Saving Station was built and opened in 1878, with its first keeper William T. West. West would serve as keeper from 1878-1889. A second station would replace the first one in 1891 and survives to this day as a Life-Saving Museum.

 The North Beach Life-Saving Station was built in 1884 all that is known to remain of the Assateague Island station is the station’s boathouse, it burned down in 1965. North Beach had numerous keepers over its career, including John A.J. Hudson, Joel R. Gordy, William B.S. Powell and William I. Purnell.

In 1915, the United States Life-Saving Service was merged with the United States Revenue Cutter Service to form the United States Coast Guard. This merge is evident through the Wreck Reports in the collection as beginning in 1915 the station starts recognizing itself as Coast Guard Station

This collection includes the Keeper’s Reports of the Ocean City Life Saving Station from December 1878 to January 1880. The reports written by Keeper William T. West, document the day to day account of duties performed by the station, tide reports and weather conditions. There is a gap in the record as between May 1889 and September 1889 the station was not active as during the summer months crews were not needed as the weather was usually calmer and the threat of harsh storms and Nor’easters were decreased.

The Wreck Reports in this collection document the rescues undertaken by the North Beach Life-Saving Station and later Coast Guard Station from 1909 to 1916. The reports document what type of vessel was in distress, the home port of the vessel, where it hailed from and the port it was headed to, its crew and cargo as well as the value of the ship and cargo. The methods used to rescue the shipwreck victims, their names and if they survived or perished is documented. The reports also documented the weather conditions present during the wreck, the suspected cause of the shipwreck and if the ship was lost or saved.

This collection offers a glimpse into a little known sector of America and Maryland’s maritime history.

Folders are listed by their location in each box; any given subject may be dispersed through the entirety of the collection. The physical arrangement mirrors the intellectual arrangement.