OLD HARBOR STATION.

This station, at the entrance of Chatham Old Harbor, has been in

commission less than five years, during which time Keeper Doane and

his crew have rescued twenty-one persons in their surf-boat and taken

thirteen shipwrecked sailors ashore in the breeches-buoy. Of the whole

number of vessels that met with disaster within the province of the

station, but two were total wrecks, viz., the _Elsie C. Smith_ of

Gloucester, and the _Commerce_ of Rockland, the latter foundering off

the shore near the station.

[Illustration: OLD HARBOR STATION.]

This station is provided with two surf-boats, two beach carts with

guns, breeches-buoys, etc., and a life-car. One of the surf-boats, a

small one, is kept in a boathouse on the point of the beach, about a

half mile from the station, where it can be quickly brought into use

for rescue work in the harbor and bay. The other surf-boat, the large

one, for use in the open sea, is kept in the station. A horse which the

government hires during the winter season is kept in a barn close to

the station.

The surfmen from this station have a patrol north for a distance of two

and one-half miles, meeting and exchanging checks with the surfmen from

the Orleans Station. On the south patrol, which is about a mile, the

surfmen use a time clock to register their patrolling of the beach at

that point.

[Illustration: HEZEKIAH F. DOANE, KEEPER OF OLD HARBOR STATION.]