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Rocky Point Lifesaving Station - by Amy Folk Southold Town Historian
The US Lifesaving service was formed in 1848. Its mission was help save some of the thousands of
sailors and passenger who drowned in maritime accidents each year off the US coastline.
The Rocky Point station was built around 1896 on the property that was donated by local resident Anton
Furst. The building was sited fifty feet back from the edge of a bluff overlooking the sound. When the
building was constructed it measured 100 feet above the water, with the cliff in front of the station
described as being nearly perpendicular. The tower commanded a view of miles up and down the
sound. The masonry work on the building was done by Morris Rogers and Son of East Marion and a
group of six carpenters from East Marion and Greenport constructed the building.
The station was equipped with a full crew and keeper. It had a rescue wagon, first aide equipment, a
breeches buoy and a life line cannon. All of the equipment had to be pulled by the men across the rocky
beaches to the site where it was needed. As part of their duties members of the lifesaving crew
patrolled miles of beach in either direction from the station keeping watch for floundering ships, distress
signals or victims caught in the currents.
Generally speaking there was only 7 men on the crew. The following list are men who served in the
station but not all at the same time. Original Crew consisted of Captain Harvey S Brown, George V Clark,
Porter C Rackett, William E Paterson, Selden B Case, George E. Udell, and Isaac B. Hallock. Later Crew
members were L. Benjamin Hallock, George B. Tuthill, John Newart, William H Rhinehart, Captain Earl
Suydam (replaced Harvey Brown), and Captain Wilbur Hedges (replaced George B. Tuthill).
The crew practicing launching and going ashore during rough weather along the shoreline as well as
working with the equipment such as the
of the lifesaving service. During storms that were too rough to allow the crew to bring their boat
alongside a floundering vessel, the crew would shoot a rope from their life-line cannon that would be
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In 1915 the Lifesaving Service was merged with the Revenue Cutter Service to create the Coast Guard.
At that point there were more than 270 stations along the Atlantic Coast. In 1948 the Coast Guard left
East Marion and the buildings became a private home.