Hull Lifesaving Museum

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Overview

In the late 19th century, Hull Village was a small and close-knit community that was defined by its proximity to the sea, both through active maritime trades at the mouth of Boston Harbor and through the popular seaside hotels and attractions that brought thousands of summer visitors by steamboat and train. In the winter months, shipwrecks along the coast of Hull were a frequent occurrence, as cargo schooners battled fierce Northeast storms in the attempt to navigate Nantasket Roads, the main shipping channel into Boston’s Inner Harbor. Generations of Hull men risked their lives to assist mariners in distress, rowing to rescue first as all-volunteer crew with the Massachusetts Humane Society, then as US Lifesavers at the Point Allerton US Lifesaving Station, which would eventually become today’s Point Allerton Coast Guard Station.

Hull lifesavers earned numerous lifesaving medals for their courageous rescues, awarded both from the Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States Congress, including the congressional Gold Lifesaving Medal for the rescue of the crew of the schooner Gertrude Abbott during the devastating Great Storm of 1888.  The Hull Massachusetts Humane Society all-volunteer lifesaving crew rowed to the rescue of the Gertrude Abbott in the Humane Society surfboat R.B. Forbes, which was named for Massachusetts Humane Society Trustee Robert Bennett Forbes. Forbes was a ship owner and captain, China trade merchant and advocate for safety at sea. Forbes had himself been awarded a lifesaving medal for his gallant conduct in saving several lives when he was a passenger aboard a Cunard steamer that collided with another ship. Forbes was famous, as well, for captaining the voyage of the Jamestown, the Irish famine relief ship sent by the people of Boston to Ireland in 1847. As trustee of the Massachusetts Humane Society, Forbes maintained an active interest in the development of improved lifesaving equipment and regulations for mariners. In the 1888 rescue of the Gertrude Abbott, the Hull lifesavers surfboat RB Forbes, heavily loaded with shipwreck survivors, was repeatedly smashed against the rocky shored as the intrepid volunteers fought the surf to reach shore. By the time the volunteers and the rescued mariners waded out to the surf with the help of townspeople gathered on the beach, the surfboat RB Forbes had been destroyed. Captain Joshua James called it miraculous that all survived the rescue.

Several of Hull’s lifesavers shared Irish heritage along with many of their neighbors in Hull Village, who often worked as staff in Hull’s famous hotels. Wealthy noted newspaperwoman Floretta Vining owned a sizable property which employed over a dozen Irish laborers. Vining donated a neighboring portion of that estate to the United States government on which to build the Point Allerton US Lifesaving Station in 1889. The crews at Point Allerton Station represented Hull’s diverse immigration heritage from Holland, Austria, Italy, and Ireland among others. These courageous crews respond to mariners in distress approaching Boston Harbor from across the Eastern seaboard and around the world, forming the foundation of today’s United States Coast Guard.