[Illustration: CAPT. HERBERT ELDREDGE, KEEPER OF CHATHAM STATION.]
Capt. Herbert E. Eldredge, keeper of the Chatham Station, was born in
Chatham in 1863, and has been in the life-saving service for thirteen
years, eight as a surfman and five as keeper, all of which have been
spent at this station. Captain Eldredge began his career on the water
along the Chatham shore when a boy of thirteen years, and was an
expert boatman, fisherman, and wrecker before he was twenty years of
age. For six years he went fishing on the rips off Chatham, one of the
most perilous occupations along the coast. As a member of Capt. Joseph
Bloomer’s wrecking crew, Captain Eldredge had a wide experience working
on wrecked vessels along the coast, and was especially fitted for the
responsible position that he now holds. He has a crew of brave and
hardy life savers for whom the rips and shoals that abound along the
Chatham shore have no terrors. Not a life has been lost within the
province of the Chatham Station during the time that Captain Eldredge
has been keeper.
He married Mary A. Nye, and is the father of two daughters and a son.