Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2014 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================= USGenNet Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== Annual Report of the Operations of the United States Life-Saving Service, 1900 DEATH OF SUPERINTENDENT ROBBINS CAPTAIN NATHANIEL ROBBINS, superintendent of the Eleventh Life- Saving District, Lake Michigan, died Tuesday morning, August 2, 1898, while on an official visit to several important points in his district. In company with the General Superintendent of the Service, CAPTAIN ROBBINS reached Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin, from Plum Island on board the revenue cutter Fessenden, in the evening of Monday, August 1, and the night was passed on board the cutter. During the afternoon he had complained somewhat of a sense of oppression in the chest, and he ate no supper, but on the following morning stated that he had passed a tolerably comfortable night. Before breakfast was ready, however, he reclined upon a sofa in the cabin, where he was alone for a few min- utes, except for the presence of the steward of the vessel, the Gener- al Superintendent having gone on deck and, without the knowledge of the sick man, sent ashore for a physician. In this interval CAPTAIN ROBBINS attempted to walk to a stateroom, and fell as he entered, in- stantly expiring where he lay. The physician, who shortly arrived, agreed that his services would have been of no avail had he been pre- sent when the shock came. CAPTAIN ROBBINS, was a native of Massachusetts, born at Harwich, on Cape Cod, September 5, 1829. The boys of those days had practically no choice of vocation there. The sea was ever before them, and their footsteps naturally turned to it. Young ROBBINS began the work of life at the age of eleven years on the deck of a Cape fishing smack. Graduating from the limited range of the fisherman to the broader scope of the merchantman, he followed the sea for sixteen years, voy- aging to and from the West Indies and South America, passing through all the grades from ship's boy to master. At the close of that period, in 1856, his heart turned westward. He had accumulated con- siderable means, which he invested in machinery for the equipment of a sawmill to be set up, as he hoped, somewhere on the shores of Lake Michigan. Loading his cargo on board his own little vessel - the Thomas Bradley - he set sail on the Atlantic for the waters of the Great Lakes. It is said that while several vessels had passed from the Lakes to the ocean prior to that time, the Thomas Bradley was the first to make the voyage inland. Under his own guidance the little craft passed every peril until she lay at the dock in Chicago, then a city of much less than 100,000 inhabitants. Thence he started with a pilot to cross the lake to St. Joseph, Michigan, but in the midst of a blinding snowstorm the vessel went ashore five miles south of her des- tination. This was CAPTAIN ROBBINS' first shipwreck, and in it he lost both vessel and cargo - all the worldy goods he possessed. At the age of twenty-seven he found himself where he was at eleven years of age - at the foot of the ladder, with no capital save hope and health and energy. With neither time nor disposition for repining, he found a way to start a little business in milling and lumber, to which he later added a general county store. His wife, who soon joined him from the East, shared in his ambitions and promoted their realization. As fortune smiled, he found himself able to build, one after another, several vessels for the Lake trade, all of which proved successful. He conducted business at St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, and elsewhere until 1882, when he was appointed superintendent of the Lake Michigan Life-Saving District, the Eleventh, taking his oath of office on the 17th of April. For more than sixteen years thereafter CAPTAIN ROBBINS performed the duties of his office with untarnished credit to himself and to the complete satisfaction of his superior officers. The office of district superintendent is one of great and varied responsibilities. The incumbent must be familiar with practical life- saving operations - the management of lifeboats and other appliances, and he must have intimate knowledge of the coast under his charge. He must be a competent, all-around business man, capable of conducting all the various business matters of his district. He is a disbursing officer and paymaster, and also an ex officio inspector of customs. When CAPTAIN ROBBINS took charge there were sixteen stations in his district; when he died here were twenty-eight. Throughout these years of expansion his assistance was of the utmost advantage to the Ser- vice, and his administration of the ever multiplying affairs committed to his charge was judicious and intelligent. He knew the nature and necessities of lake navigation as well as any man in the country, while his candor and agreeable faculty of dealing with men made him not only efficient but popular with all interests - those of the ship- master not less than those of the sailor and the surfman. He was of that quality of fidelity which never shirks, and of courage which exacts no more of others than it is willing itself to undertake. His quarterly tours of inspection through the district were always reli- ably performed regardless of personal discomfort, and in some cases - as when crossing by an open boat to the Manitou Islands in bad weather - at no little peril. During his incumbency he disbursed an average sum of upward of ninety thousand dollars per annum - sometimes much more than one hundred thousand - a total of more than a million and a half, consist- ing of almost innumerable small items (besides the larger ones) re- quiring extreme care as well as much labor. As a private citizen, his life was in every way worthy. Its rectitude, gentleness and purity commanded the respect of all who knew him, and caused his demise to be universally estimated as a serious loss to the community. Funeral Services were held at Grand Haven, which was his home at the time of his decease, but a more general and important observance took place with Masonic and other official honors at St. Joseph, Michigan, where he was buried. He was a good man and a good officer. ===========================================================================