A Whaleboat Vanished in the Surf Off Grays Harbor
Lieut. Freeman H. Crosby and four seamen from the survey steamer McArthur were lost trying to land through the surf at Joe Creek, fifteen miles north of Grays Harbor.
OCOSTA, Aug. 19.—[Special.]—On Saturday morning, while making a landing through the surf at Joe Creek, fifteen miles north of Grays Harbor, a whaleboat and crew of nine men in command of Lieut. Freeman H. Crosby, U.S.N., of the United States coast survey steamer McArthur, was capsized, and five men are missing and probably drowned. They are: Lieut. Crosby, John Fryer, Jens Gudmundsen, William Nehm and Alexander Smith.
The McArthur, in command of Lieut. Crosby, has been surveying the coast between Grays Harbor and Cape Flattery during two months past. The attempt to land through the surf was to erect a signal. Crosby's wife and two children are at Ocosta.
[Freeman H. Crosby was appointed to the navy as midshipman from New York July 1, 1868.]
“A whaleboat and crew of nine men in command of Lieut. Freeman H. Crosby, U.S.N., was capsized, and five men are missing and probably drowned.”
The Washington coast remains one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the country, and the 1894 loss of a Coast Survey launch reminds us that charting the coast was itself hazardous work. The crew's names survive in the newspaper, not on a monument.
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