George H. Brown
By John Galluzzo
The unexpected death of Captain Joshua James, keeper of the Point Allerton United States Life-Saving Service Station in Hull, on March 19, 1902, left a void not only in the station's leadership, but in the hearts of the town's mourning citizenry. In just the short span of a half century, the town's name had become synonymous with lifesaving, and recognized as such nationwide, mostly due to James' daring and inspirational guidance; between 1848 and 1898, volunteer lifesavers in Hull earned 275 medals for bravery.
James' death represented the loss of the town's first true hero and most revered citizen. As Life-Saving Service District Superintendent Benjamin C. Sparrow pored over his records in Orleans on Cape Cod to locate an able-bodied and sharp-minded lifesaver to act as James' successor as keeper at Point Allerton, the townsfolk in Hull searched for a new champion to stand behind.
Floretta Vining, the station's next door neighbor and the outspoken editor of a syndicate of nine South Shore newspapers (including the Hull Beacon and Scituate Light) presented her choice for the area's new designated lifesaving hero that summer. Although the Life-Saving Service appointed William C. Sparrow of Provincetown (no relation to the District Superintendent) to replace James the week of July 4th, the same week as the scheduled launch from Quincy of the world's first and only seven-masted steel schooner, the Thomas W. Lawson, Vining chose to pin her hopes elsewhere. On August 15, 1902, under the heading "An Old Life-Saver," she published a portrait of Keeper George H. Brown of the North Scituate station, with a short biographical sketch.
Born in Boston on July 15, 1841, Brown traced his Scituate ancestry back at least two generations, with both his father and grandfather being born there. The son of a shipbuilder, after finishing school in Boston, Brown headed to sea aboard the clipper ship Staghorn at 14, stopping at many sites in the Pacific. At 17, he took up the trade of ship caulker, learning from his father back in Boston until he turned 21.
On September 1, 1862, hearing President Abraham Lincoln's call for 300,000 Massachusetts men to take up the arms against the rebel South, Brown enlisted with the 42nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry for nine months' duty, one of 8 George H. Browns that fought for Massachusetts during the Civil War. His experience during that conflict amounted to nothing more than building redoubts and picketing railroads along the Mississippi River near New Orleans, Louisiana. On August 20, 1863, Brown found himself at Camp Meigs in Readville, MA, to accept his pay and to be mustered out of service.
For two years after his return, Brown ran the schooner Frank built by his father's firm, Brown & Lovell, as a packet between Boston and Scituate, where he met and married Lydia B. Burrows on August 21, 1865. He later ran the sloop Lady of the Lake as a fishing boat in spring and fall, taking advantage of her as a party boat in the summer, carrying visitors to Scituate's shore out on pleasure excursions. After selling that vessel, he joined John H. Smith of Scituate aboard the Bell, a coastal transport schooner.
On December 7, 1879, the USLSS appointed the 38 year old Brown as Surfman Number One at the newly-built Fourth Cliff station. For the next seven years he learned the trade of lifesaver under Keeper Frederick Stanley, until December 15, 1886, when he accepted a transfer to the North Scituate station as keeper, upon the completion of its construction. Between May 28, 1887, and August 2, 1902, Keeper Brown and his crews responded to 35 calls of distress, the most memorable of which was the wreck of the brig T. Remick on March 5, 1889. The Maritime and Irish Mossing Museum's life-saving room today displays one of Brown's most treasured items, built entirely from the T. Remick's wreckage, and described thusly by the Hull Beacon: “H. C. Dimond of Boston presented Capt. Brown a model of the James beach apparatus handcart, such as all life saving crews use, as a token of appreciation of the work of the crew. The model adorns the captain's room at the station and is constructed from copper bolts from the brig and wood from her cabin. On the top of the model's case is a bell presented by Capt. L. H. Forrest."
On December 12, 1902, Floretta Vining again ran Brown's picture on the front
page of the Hull Beacon, to celebrate his 23rd anniversary in connection with
the USLSS, and to reiterate her support of the keeper as the grand old man
of local lifesaving. As a Civil War veteran with a lifetime of experience
on the sea and nearly a quarter century at work in the noblest of pursuits,
George H. Brown already personified heroism to hundreds along the Scituate
shore. Could he ever replace Joshua James in the hearts of Hullonians? Only
time would tell.