{"id":6793,"date":"2026-10-12T17:29:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=6793"},"modified":"2026-10-12T19:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T23:47:11","slug":"pea-island-lifesavers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/?p=6793","title":{"rendered":"Pea Island Lifesavers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty years ago, I was president of <em><strong>Chicamacomico Historical Association<\/strong><\/em>. As a board member, I had been involved with the group since 1982. Our job was historical preservation and promoting the legacy of the <strong><em>United States Lifesaving Service<\/em><\/strong>. There were numerous other lifesaving stations along the coast.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>One of those was <em><strong>Pea Island Station<\/strong><\/em> several miles north of Chicamacomico. It was the only station in the country manned by an all African-American crew. On October 11, 1896 they responded to the shipwreck of the <em><strong>E.S. Newman<\/strong><\/em>. An account of this event is found in the following United States Naval Institute publication.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.usni.org\/magazines\/naval-history-magazine\/1997\/february\/against-raging-storm<\/p>\n<p>On October 11, 1996 we celebrated the one hundred year anniversary of this rescue by gathering descendants of the rescuers and rescued together. It was somewhat emotional knowing that without that 1896 crew at Pea Island, some of the attendees would never have been born. Pea Island<em><strong> Keeper Richard Etheridge<\/strong><\/em> and his crew were awarded <em><strong>Gold Lifesaving Medals<\/strong><\/em> posthumously for heroism.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Wm-C-Bowser-copy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6794\" src=\"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Wm-C-Bowser-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Wm-C-Bowser-copy.jpg 600w, http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Wm-C-Bowser-copy-400x320.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>During the gathering I was taken by one particular individual. <em><strong>William C Bowser<\/strong><\/em> was descended from <em><strong>Surfman Benjamin Bowser<\/strong><\/em> who took part in the rescue. Speaking with Mr. Bowser, I found him to be a true gentleman, handsome, humble and accomplished. I asked if he would mind if I photographed him and he obliged. He passed away ten years later in 2006. He was the last surviving crew member of the all-black Pea Island Coast Guard Station.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty years ago, I was president of Chicamacomico Historical Association. As a board member, I had been involved with the group since 1982. Our job was historical preservation and promoting the legacy of the United States Lifesaving Service. There were numerous other lifesaving stations along the coast.\u00a0 One of those was Pea Island Station several [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,44,26,4,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-military","category-outer-banks","category-people","category-shipwrecks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6793"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6798,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6793\/revisions\/6798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/photoblog.michaelhalminski.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}