Capt. Charles P. Kelley, keeper of the High Head Life-Saving Station,
was born in the village of South Yarmouth, Mass., in the year 1850.
He attended the public schools in his native village until he was a
young man, when he went to sea. His first experience being on a fishing
vessel. Later he engaged in the coastwise service, and after a number
of years joined the fleet of merchantmen which, at that time, carried
on an extensive trade with the West Indies.
At the age of twenty-nine, Captain Kelley left the merchant service and
joined the crew of life savers under the late Capt. David H. Atkins, at
the Peaked Hill Bars Life-Saving Station.
[Illustration: CAPT. CHARLES P. KELLEY, KEEPER OF HIGH HEAD.]
Captain Kelley was attached to the Peaked Hill Bars Station for about
three years, during which time he had a number of thrilling experiences
and narrow escapes from death in the performance of his duty.
At the time of the wreck of the sloop _C. M. Trumbull_, on Peaked
Hill Bars, Captain Kelley was in the life-boat with Captain Atkins
going off to the rescue of the imperiled crew, when the latter and two
members of the crew lost their lives.
It was Captain Kelley who discovered the sloop stranded on the bars.
The life-boat was quickly manned and put off to the wrecked vessel, and
in a short time three of the crew were landed on the beach. A second
trip through the breakers was safely made, and the boat was alongside
the sloop, ready to take off the remaining two members, when the boom
of the sloop caught the life-boat under the belt, and capsized it,
throwing all hands into the boiling sea.
The night was intensely dark and the weather freezing cold. Captain
Atkins was never seen, and the other two members of the boat’s crew
perished after repeated attempts to get into their boat.
Captain Kelley, surfman as he was then, together with “Sam” Fisher,
now keeper of the Race Point Station, and Isaiah H. Young reached the
shore after a terrible struggle, and were pulled out of the surf by the
members of the crew who had remained ashore.
All three were more dead than alive. The bodies of Captain Atkins
and the two members of the crew, Elisha Taylor and Frank A. Mayo,
were afterwards found on the beach by the life savers of an adjoining
station.
Captain Kelley had been in the service but about a year when he passed
through this terrible experience, yet he remained at the dangerous
Peaked Hill Bars Station for three years under the late Capt. Isaac G.
Fisher, being transferred to the High Head Station as keeper when the
station was first manned in 1883.
Captain Kelley had such a wide and varied experience when following the
sea, and later as a surfman attached to the Peaked Hill Bars Station,
that he was especially well qualified for the responsible position of
keeper of the High Head Station, where he has been in command for over
twenty years.
During his long term of service as keeper he has been called upon at
times to face the elements when they were in their greatest fury, yet
he has unflinchingly responded to every call, and, with the surfmen
under his charge, have had many thrilling experiences, and endured
untold hardship. Captain Kelley was twice married; his present wife was
Hannah C. Graham. He is the father of one child, a daughter.