The Story of the Nathan Cobb Cottage
The Nathan Cobb Cottage is a one and a half story residential building that was constructed in 1897 by a local man named William Fagen using salvaged cargo lumber and wood parts from the ship wreck of the wooden three-masted Nathan F. Cobb schooner, which ran aground off the coast of Ormond (now Ormond Beach), Florida in 1896. The cottage is located at 137 Orchard Lane, Ormond Beach, Florida 32176.
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In 1890, the Nathan F. Cobb ship was built in Rockland, Maine. It was a three-masted, square rigged schooner which was 167.2 feet long with a beam width of 32.1 feet and weighed 656 tons.2 The ship was named after Nathan F. Cobb, a ship builder, who was born in 1797 in Eastham, MA. His family moved to Northhampton
County, Virginia and eventually purchased Sand Shoal Island, which later became known as Cobb Island. In 1839, he and his sons founded Cobb’s Salvaging Company and they became very well-known in the business of wrecking and salvaging stranded ships along the Mid-Atlantic coastline. The Cobb Salvaging Company amassed an impressive record of rescue efforts of at least 37 ships without a loss of a single life. The Cobb family gained a reputation for their humanity and generosity as they were known to have cared for and housed crews of ten to twenty sailors that became stranded on their island. It was the Cobb family and other trailblazing wreckers and salvagers of the nineteenth century who led the way to form the United States Life-Saving Service in 1848, which later merged with the Revenue Cutter Service to form the United States Coast Guard in 1915.
On November 28, 1896, the Nathan F. Cobb departed from Brunswick, Georgia with her crew of eight men on its way to New York City with a cargo of railroad cross ties and timber on what would be the ship’s last voyage. On December 1, 1896, the ship encountered strong Nor’easter storms at the Frying Pan Shoals off Cape Fear in North Carolina and capsized. Two crewman, Daniel Parker and F.W. Beal, were flung overboard and drown in the turbulent ocean waters. The surviving crewman were able to save the ship from sinking by removing the main and mizzen masts, but the ship was in dire straits as it was waterlogged and had no power to maneuver itself. The ship drifted southward for about four days and traveled 375 miles until it ran aground on a sandbar about 1000 feet off the coast of Ormond, Florida on December 5, 1896.
Local residents discovered the wrecked ship in the early morning hours of December 6, 1896 and realized the crew was stranded. J.D. Price, manager of the Ormond Hotel, began gathering a group of local people to assist in rescue efforts. Meanwhile, Hiram B. Shaw, Superintendent of the United States Life-Saving Service’s Seventh Life-Saving District, was called to the scene. Shaw telegraphed the Jupiter, Florida Inlet Life Saving Station and requested life-saving beach apparatus to be sent by train from Jupiter to Ormond, Florida. He also had a small surf boat moved to the beach and purchased ropes and other equipment needed for the rescue attempt. About fifty local people joined Shaw, but the rescue attempt was delayed until low tide. Six attempts to reach the Nathan F. Cobb were unsuccessful as the ocean currents outmatched the small boats. A small metallic dingy (iron yawl) was then launched and manned by local residents Tom Fagen and Freeman Waterhouse. They nearly reached the stranded ship when a large wave struck their boat and flipped it over forcing them into the rough ocean waters.
Fagen managed to swim ashore, but Waterhouse returned to the small boat and attempted to steady it as men on shore began pulling it towards the beach by its tow ropes. Another large wave struck the boat and threw Waterhouse into the ocean. He was seen struggling to hang onto an oar but soon went under the surface and drowned. Several searches failed to locate Waterhouse’s body and he was never recovered.
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Shaken by witnessing the drowning of a rescuer Captain Benner of the Nathan F. Cobb said, “They have sacrificed one man in their efforts to save us; now I’ll risk my life in an attempt to get ashore.”6 He then jumped off the ship after securing a rope around his waist and battled the waves as a rescue boat manned by Hiram B. Shaw and Edward DeCourcy was able to reach him and escort him to the safety of the beach. The other five stranded crewmen were then rescued and given coffee, whiskey and a blanket before being taken to an area hospital.
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The General Superintendent of the United States Life Saving Service, Sumner Increase Kimball, wrote a letter of praise and appreciation to Edward DeCourcy and acknowledged all the other local people who assisted in the rescue of the six surviving Nathan F. Cobb crewmen.
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The death of Freeman Waterhouse was quite a local story and tragedy as Tom Fagen wrote, “If you see any of the friends of Waterhouse you can tell them he died in as noble arid brave a cause, as any man ever did...”9 A large boulder stone was sent to John Anderson and Joseph Price from Cape Elizabeth, Maine to stand as a monument near the site of the ship wreck to the bravery of Freeman Waterhouse.
The Nathan F. Cobb schooner remained stranded right off the shore of Ormond as it was beyond economic repair. It was salvaged for its wood and freight (photo 4) and what remained of it eventually disappeared under the water. More than 120 years later, remnants of the ship’s hull can occasionally be seen after violent storms and ocean waves disrupt the area’s sandbars.
