Capt. Seth L. Ellis, keeper of the Monomoy Station and sole survivor of
the Monomoy disaster, was born in Harwich Port, Oct. 12, 1858, and has
been in the life-saving service seven years, all of which have been at
this station.
Captain Ellis came from a family of seafaring people. His father, Capt.
Seth N. Ellis, was an old West Indies tradesman.
Captain Ellis went to sea with his father when but nine years of age.
When fifteen years of age Captain Ellis joined the fleet of mackerel
fishermen, remaining with the fleet until he went coasting. While a
member of the crew of the three-masted schooner _Enos B. Phillips_, of
Boston, Capt. T. Reuben Allen, of Harwich Port, master, the vessel was
struck by a blizzard that made her a helpless wreck. With her jibboom,
bowsprit, foremast, and maintop masts gone, all her head sails lost,
and the cabin and forecastle wrecked, the schooner was blown across
the gulf stream and out of the track of all shipping. After many
days, during which the crew suffered terribly, Captain Allen finally
triumphed and brought the vessel into port.
Captain Ellis has been master of sailing and steam vessels, and now
carries a captain’s first-class steamboat license for the Atlantic
coast. Captain Ellis was also a well-known mackerel fisherman, being
a member of the crew of the first steam fishing vessel employed in
mackerel fishery, the _Novelty_, of Boston. Later Captain Ellis engaged
in boat fishing along the shores of the Cape near Chatham, continuing
in that work until he joined the Monomoy crew of life savers.