OUTER BANKS, N.C. — As we celebrate Black History Month, Spectrum News 1 has been looking back on life-changing people, events and movements in North Carolina’s history.

This week, we’re honoring the heroic actions of the crew members of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station, with the help of Zachary Lemhouse, staff historian for the Culture and Heritage Museums of York County, South Carolina.

What You Need To Know

  • The Pea Island Lifesaving Station was the first all-Black lifesaving crew in the U.S., led by the first-ever Black commander

  • They watched over the North Carolina coast for ships in distress in an area known as “The Graveyard of the Atlantic”

  • On Oct. 11, 1896, the Pea Island Lifesaving Station members risked their lives to save nine crewmen, a wife and child, aboard the E.S. Newman during a hurricane

From 1874 to 1878, a chain of 18 lifesaving stations were built 15 miles along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, in an area referred to as “The Graveyard of the Atlantic.”

The Pea Island Lifesaving Station became the first lifesaving station in the country to have an entirely African-American crew, including their commander, Richard Etheridge.

“Etheridge was born into slavery in North Carolina in 1842. His enslaver was a commercial fishing operator, and Etheridge learned to navigate the shallow waters off of North Carolina’s coast,” Lemhouse explained. “He joined the Union army (36th Colored Regiment) during the American Civil War. Following the war, he was appointed keeper of the lifesaving station on Pea Island.”

Lemhouse says Etheridge developed a series of rigorous life-saving drills to help prepare his crew for emergency operations.

“These drills paid off — on Oct. 11, 1896, a schooner called the E.S. Newman ran aground during a hurricane two miles south of the Pea Island Station,” Lemhouse said.

Etheridge's crew saw the distress flare from the E.S. Newman and sprang into action.

“The Pea Island crew risked their lives during a four-hour rescue operation to save the nine crewmen aboard, including the captain’s wife and 3-year-old son,” Lemhouse said.

In 1996, the Coast Guard posthumously awarded the gold lifesaving medal to members of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station:

  • Richard Etheridge, Keeper
  • Benjamin Bowser, Surfman
  • Lewis Wescott, Surfman
  • Dorman Pugh, Surfman
  • Theodore Meekins, Surfman
  • Stanley Wise, Surfman
  • William Irving, Surfman

For more information about Pea Island Life-Saving Station, visit the Pea Island Preservation Society website. 

Lemhouse also helps to organize a series of Black History Month events at Historic Brattonsville. To learn more about them, click here.