Ocean City, NJ, Life-Saving Station No. 30
2019-08-11

The Life-Saving Service

In the 1870's, Congress established the U.S. Life-Saving Service to reduce the extensive loss of life that was occurring from shipwrecks. Much of the coast was sparsely populated, and if any shipwreck survivors made it ashore, there was no help available -- or even worse, they fell prey to looters or "shore pirates."
In the Mid-Atlantic area, the service consisted of 31 stations from five to seven miles apart. Each station was staffed by a crew of "surfmen" who lived at the station while on duty. Day and night, they patrolled the beach on horseback looking for ships in distress. When they sighted a foundering ship, the crew went to its rescue regardless of the weather. If they were unable to shoot a line to it, they would launch their surfboats and row out to the ship to make the rescue. The surfman's unofficial motto was, "You have to go out, you don't have to come back."
In 1915, Congress combined the Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service to form the U.S. Coast Guard.