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The hobgoblins and creatures that go bump-in-the-night were already at work planning misadventures for unsuspecting mariners that Halloween night. They were up to their same old dirty tricks using a sudden storm as a weapon.
Thursday, October 31, 1883 had started out as a cool, crisp day and Lake Erie was as smooth as glass. The Sophia Minch, a three-masted, 40-year-old, merchant schooner, deeply loaded with iron ore, on a southeasterly course, was beating her way toward the Port of Cleveland. Her graceful 130-foot hull, under full sail, cut the water in trim fashion. Around mid-afternoon, the lookout called out that he had spotted the Cleveland Breakwater.
Lake storms can arrive with terrifying speed and without warning. This one was no exception. Within an hour, the temperature had dropped, the water was in a frenzy and a northwest gale was blowing with all her fury. Sailing against the wind, she was approaching the Cleveland Breakwater entrance by a series of tacking maneuvers. The ship arrived off the harbor about seven o’clock in the evening and she attempted to make her way in.
But the witch of the wind and waves delivered the Sophia Minch a one-two punch. As the ship was turning to meet the harbor entrance, the wind shifted from northwest to northeast, which abruptly turned the hull broadside to the waves. A heavy sea smashed her rudder and away she drifted toward the beach. Her experienced master quickly let both anchors drop and ordered all hands up into the rigging to reef the sails. She ran up her distress signals and fired off a flare calling for a tugboat. When one responded, it was unable to handle her and a second one was called for.
Captain Goodwin and the other members of the Cleveland life saving crew boarded this second tug. When they reached the stricken vessel, all but two of the lifesavers were placed on the Minch; two being kept on the two tugs to help the deck hands manage the mooring lines. The temperature was dropping rapidly as a light snow began falling.
Every part of the Sophia Minch’s exposed hull and all of her rigging was covered with a thick glare of ice. The whistling wind howled through the rigging like pack of screaming banshees. It was difficult to stand on deck and bitterly cold. The hawsers were passed to the tugs and the anchors raised; but, as the schooner was getting under way, the ropes broke and the anchors were dropped again. To make matters worse, the anchors were dragging on the bottom and the ship was drifting toward the shore. If she grounded on the shoal water of the bar, she would soon pound to pieces in turbulent surf.
The Ship’s Master and Captain Goodwin decided to sink her in the twenty-foot deep water where she would rest fairly easily on the bottom. Then after the storm had abated, her cargo could be salvaged and later the vessel could be raised and repaired. The ship’s carpenter bored holes through her deck, flooding seas poured in and down she went.
The crew and the lifesavers as well climbed up into the rigging. She now lay partially submerged about 50 yards off shore.
It was about two o’clock in the morning and the two tugboat captains did not dare go alongside the sunken hull to take the men from the rigging. So at the advice of the two remaining life savers, the two boats headed back to the pier. From the shoreline, the two lifesavers gathered volunteers, got the beach apparatus in place and by good luck, fired a line across the fore rigging, where most of the twenty-nine man crew of the Sophia Minch, along with Captain Goodwin and his life-saving crew, were clinging. All hands were quickly taken ashore, except for one lifesaver and two sailors. The lifesaver who remained was Surfman Frederick T. Hatch and the two sailors left on board were in the mizzen rigging. (The mizzenmast is the third mast aft on a three-masted schooner.)
The two sailors there were by this time so exhausted and numb from the hardships of the night that they were barely able to cling to the ratlines. Hatch was in great physical shape and had several years’ experience in rescuing seamen from stricken ships. Without hesitation, he moved toward the stranded sailors. He reached the main rigging by the route of the stays (heavy ropes used to support the masts and spars).
Standing on the pin rail that surrounded the mainmast, while the boom and gaff swung with thunderous blows from rail to rail, he carefully inched his way out onto the ice-covered boom. The darkness was so intense that he could only see the loom of breaking water beneath him. The gale was so furious that his life was in great danger as he clutched the ropes on the swinging boom. Slowly he reached the end of the boom and then, as it swung once more to leeward, Hatch stood up and leaped out into the pitch-dark night. It was a leap of faith. He landed in the rope shrouds that stretched from the masthead to the deck. The ropes were right where he was sure they would be. He climbed up into the mizzen rigging and went to the aid of the two stricken sailors. As soon as possible a line was thrown over the mizzen rigging. Then with the breeches buoy gear, Hatch sent the two sailors ashore, one at a time, and then came himself.
Not a man was lost that dreadful Halloween night.
As a reward for his efforts Hatch was given a safer job on land.
Early in 1884, he was made Head Keeper of the Cleveland Breakwater Light, which was established in 1831. (It was later renamed the West Pierhead Light.) The Port of Cleveland was at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, with two, long parallel breakwaters, about a mile apart, reaching out into Lake Erie. The lighthouse and keeper’s quarters were located at the tip of the western breakwater. Over the next few years, Mr. and Mrs. Hatch raised several children at the station.
The propeller steamer John M. Nicol was towing a big schooner-barge from Washburn, Lake Superior to Fairport, Ohio with 1,800,000 feet of dressed lumber. The hull of the barge had been first launched as a 260-foot, five-masted schooner, which sailed the high seas for many years. As with many older vessels, she was eventually overhauled, refitted, her masts removed and converted into a cargo barge. Renamed the Wahnapitae, she had a crew of eight. Captain Hazen was Skipper and his wife was the cook.
All went well until Sunday, October 26, 1890, when they experienced a sudden gale off Point au Pelee. A heavy sea quickly gathered and the Wahnapitae commenced to leak. The captain of the Nicol decided to head for the Port of Cleveland.
Just before reaching the western Breakwater, the captain of the Nicol feared that the sinking barge would pull his own ship down and he cast off the line to the barge, steamed safely into the river and tied up near the railroad bridge. Rescue attempts by the tugs were made to get a line to the barge, but the heavy seas made their efforts useless. It was very cold and the wind was at gale force. The lumber-filled barge was out of control, heading for the rocks at the base of the breakwater.
Captain Hazen, on the schooner-barge ordered the anchor dropped , but before it took hold and a second anchor lowered, the deck load of lumber was washed off and the hull swung very close to the breakwater pier.
All hands jumped onto the flat surface of the breakwater to avoid drowning on the sinking barge. But minutes later, every one of them was washed from the pier by a huge wave that swept over it. They were holding onto the rocks inside the harbor.
The lighthouse keeper, Frederick T. Hatch, rowed a small boat along, just inside the breakwater, along side the pier, and reached those who were clinging to the breakwater. He took the captain’s wife and a sailor aboard his skiff. As Keeper Hatch started rowing toward the lighthouse, a wave crashed over the top of the breakwater and overturned the boat.
Leaving the sailor and the rest of the crew to Captain Goodwin and his life saving crew, who had just arrived, Hatch swam with the woman to an iron ladder on the inside of the pier. Mrs. Hazen was unconscious and a dead weight in the very cold water. Keeper Hatch was at near exhaustion himself. Holding on there for a few minutes to recover his breath, he then helped the lady up to the lighthouse, where his wife cared for her.
It was the act of June 20, 1874 that first provided for giving gold and silver medals to “any person who shall here-after endanger their own lives in saving or endeavoring to save lives from the perils of the sea. The gold medals shall be confined to cases of extreme and heroic daring.”
On June 23, 1885, Surfman Frederick T. Hatch was awarded the gold life-saving medal for his heroism aboard the Sophia Minch, when, at great risk to his own life, aided in saving the lives of two stranded seamen.
On May 4, 1891, Lighthouse Keeper Frederick T. Hatch was awarded the gold life saving second service bar in recognition of his extraordinary gallantry in rescuing Mrs. Catherine Hazen from drowning.
Frederick T. Hatch holds a singular distinction in history. He received his first gold medal for his leap of faith, in the darkness of night to rescue two sailors, nearly frozen in the rigging of a stricken ship. And he received the second gold for swimming ashore with a lady to prevent her drowning.
From 1874 until 1920, nearly five hundred gold and silver medals were distributed. Lighthouse Keeper Frederick T. Hatch was one of an elite few to be decorated twice for the gold.
This story appeared in the
October 2001 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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