Upgrades Eyed To Mack Memorial: Monument Commemorates 1902 Tragedy That Took 12 Lives

CHATHAM – John Hutchinson spent his childhood summers at his grandparents’ circa 1780 house off Silverleaf Avenue, immediately behind the Mack Memorial, where he and his sister played “monument tag” as children.

That history has given the 84-year-old Hutchinson a clear and consistent view of the evolution of the landscape around the obelisk adjacent to the Coast Guard Station and across Main Street from the Lighthouse Beach overlook. In recent years, he’s noticed that the elements surrounding the monument — concrete posts, chains and a walkway — had deteriorated while nearby shrubs originally in the shape of an anchor had become overgrown.

On a recent visit to the monument, he noticed that the posts and chains were gone.

“I’ve never seen it without the posts,” said Hutchinson. “It makes it open, and in a sense more inviting.”

The posts and chains were removed at the direction of the cemetery commission, which oversees the monument and the Seaman’s Cemetery behind it. According to commission chair David Whitcomb, new granite posts, new chains and new walkway pavers will be installed — if and when the commission can secure funding.

“It will probably come down to community preservation funds,” he said. The commission has just enough money available at the end of the fiscal year to remove the deteriorating posts and chains, which date from about 1925, more than a decade after the monument was dedicated.

 The Mack Memorial dates from 1903, a year after the disaster it commemorates. The story is told in detail by Marcia J. Monbleau in her 1995 book, “Home Song.”

 On March 11, 1902, the schooner barges Wadena and John C. Fitzgerald, loaded with cargoes of coal and heading for Boston, ran aground on Shovelful Shoal just south of the tip of Monomoy Island. A crew from the Monomoy Lifesaving Station boarded the vessels and worked to float them for several days, but were unsuccessful. 

 The weather worsened, and on March 16, only five men remained aboard the Wadena, including owner William Henry Mack. The next morning, Monomoy Station Captain Marshall Eldridge walked to the point and saw a distress flag flying on the Wadena, which was about a half mile offshore. From a nearby watchhouse, he called Surfman Seth Ellis and ordered him to launch a surfboat.

 After picking up Eldridge, the surfboat and crew headed for the barge. Seas were rough, and the crewmembers lowered themselves into the surfboat by rope one by one. They were told to sit still, but a wave hit and they panicked, grabbing onto the surfmen. A second, larger wave hit and flipped the boat, sending the five Wadena crewmembers and eight surfmen into the cold water.

 The men scrambled to hold on to the overturned surfboat, but one by one slipped away into the roiling sea. Captain Elmer Mayo, heading the wrecking operation at the Fitzgerald, looked out and saw men clinging to the overturned surfboat; as he watched, all but one disappeared. Mayo jumped into a 12-foot dory and managed to maneuver alongside the surfboat and haul aboard the last man remaining alive, Seth Ellis.

 They made for the shore, where surfman Francisco Bloomer managed to help pull them through the breaking waves to safety.

 “It all seems like a dream,” Monbleau quotes Ellis as saying the following day. “I have a faint recollection of someone saying, ‘Goodbye boys, it’s no use to try.’ The next I knew, was when I was pulled into the boat.”

‘12 Men Perish’

 The loss of a dozen lives in what the Harwich Independent called “the most appalling calamity that was ever known in this section” devastated the communities of Harwich — where five of the surfmen were from — and Chatham. Mayo and Ellis were presented with gold medals for their heroism by Congressman William Greene, and Ellis was named keeper of the Monomoy station. The tragedy was big news; according to a newspaper clipping from the time, more than $36,000 was raised for the families of those lost. 

 A Lifesaving Service report on the incident noted that the Wadena remained safe offshore for days afterwards, and that the men on board needlessly panicked. But their sense of duty would not allow the lifesavers to ignore the distress flag. 

 The men who were lost had been unable to cling to the overturned surfboat. Recognizing that, the Lifesaving Service began installing handholds on the underside of surfboat hulls which could be held onto in similar situations. 

 A year after the incident, the U.S. Lighthouse Department OK’d construction of a memorial next to the lighthouse, which was sponsored by the mother of Wadena owner William Henry Mack. The obelisk, known as the Mack Memorial, recognized Mayo’s “gallant rescue” of Ellis and included the names of the surfmen and Wadena crewmembers who perished. Inscribed underneath the name of William Henry Mack are lines from the poem “Crossing the Bar” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

 Hutchinson surmises that a fence and the hedges at the site — and maybe the chains — were installed in the 1920s to keep out cows kept by the nearby lifesaving crew (he’s got a photo of animals crazing around the area). Behind the monument, the Seamen’s Cemetery holds the bodies of more than 100 sailors who washed ashore over the decades. Today one headstone remains.

 “There were more when I was a kid,” he said.

These days the memorial doesn’t attract much attention. Sometimes it catches the eyes of visitors to the overlook, Hutchinson said, and they wander over and examine the inscriptions on all four sides. Upgrading the area around the monument, including repairing the pavers, could attract more people, he suggested. 

“It’s a pretty interesting event that it commemorates,” he noted, adding that the area includes other historical markers, including a plaque marking the Revolutionary War Battle of Chatham Harbor on June 20, 1782, across the street from the Mack Memorial. A bit farther down along the overlook is the original prop from the CG36500 and marker detailing the Pendleton rescue on Feb. 18, 1952.

“It’s a great spot,” agreed historical commission chair Frank Messina, and should be enhanced.

Whitcomb expects the commission will apply for community preservation funds for the upgrades at next May’s annual town meeting.

 “I really think it’s an important asset to the town, so we really should spruce it up,” he said.