Steamship Brewster & Bananas

Earlier this week I shared an excerpt from a 1939 interview with Isaac (Big Ike) O'Neal (1865-1954), who served with the United States Life Saving Service from 1904-1917. Following is another paragraph from that interview:

“While in the service at Hatteras Inlet Station, we had one very rough trip off Diamond Shoals trying to save the crew off of the Steamship Brewster which was lost on Diamond Shoals on November 29, 1909. When we reached the wrecked ship, we found that three of the crew had left in a life boat and went to the Light Ship safely. There were thirty-one members of the crew, so we took the remaining twenty-eight on our boat. On our way to the Diamond Shoals we had taken the crew off the Creedshill Lifeboat, which had sunk about four miles from shore, and had taken them with us to the wrecked steamship, making a boat full sure’nuf. The ship cargo was bananas. It was about sunset when we got to shore. We towed the captains’s boat to the beach and then transferred the 28 men to the Cape Point boat and then took them to the Cape Point Life Station. We then went back to Hatteras Inlet Station. My captain was Captain Dave Barnett.”

[You can read more about the wreck of the Brewster here: https://www.villagecraftsmen.com/betts-dream-wreck-banana-boat/.]

This month's Ocracoke Newsletter is about Old Christmas in Rodanthe. You can read it here: https://www.villagecraftsmen.com/old-christmas-rodanthe/.