Life Boat Company of the 1850s Set the Tone for a City's Charity

By Bill Cherry

Dallas Broker-Realtor

Within the next few days, we'll know if the current hurricane Dean that's racing across the Gulf of Mexico will go ashore along the Texas coast. One potential target is Galveston, an island that's fifty miles from Houston. The most famous Galveston hurricane happened in 1900. Books upon books have been written about the 1900 Storm because some 6,000 people lost their lives. The island had to pump dredge material from the gulf's bottom onto the island to raise the whole kit and kaboodle above sea level.

But Galveston has, since the beginning of time, been a town that has been forced to frequently deal with the disasters caused by the various angers of nature. And it has always risen to the occasion. And if necessary, it will this time.

Beginning back in the early 1800s, no matter the size or the materials it was made of, or how it was powered, with reasonable frequency vessels were caught by the gulf tides and the waves and the winds and the storms, and when that happened, the odds were that within moments the big boat would become junk at the bottom of the gulf with scores of dead bodies floating to the top; within hours they were cluttering the beach and belching the odor of death through the windows of the mansions that bordered the beach.

In 1857 a big steamer called the "Louisiana" got caught in the rough seas off of Galveston and it broke apart and it sunk and it sent scores of bodies to the beach. And, as it had so many times in the past, the city got a large group of volunteers to gather the bodies and bury them, with wooden crosses to mark each grave, and the quick recitation of the 23^rd Psalm from a minister to remind God to look after the soul of each of those nameless men that only He recognized and knew about.

And then a few days after that task was completed, hundreds of Galvestonians gathered at the opera house on 23^rd Street near Strand, and enough money was collected to clothe the survivors of the Louisiana and to buy each of them passage home. That was just one example of the charity of Galveston.

But it was also at this meeting that the Galveston Life Boat Company was founded and it was chartered a couple of years later. It would become famous around the world because it was unique.

It was a company of volunteers who were not afraid of the rough gulf waters because they knew them, and they were willing to become trained at rescuing those who found themselves helpless in the arms of the sea. And they took those risks without payment and knowing that there was a better than 50-50 chance that each time they went out, they would not return.

The numbers of men, women and children that the GLBC saved over the years is legendary. The enormous danger to their own lives that the members of the GLBC took, time after time, is mind boggling, even today.

But their contribution to life saving was beyond a finite count. Shortly after the GLBC was formed, two other steamships, the Galveston and the Opelousas, rammed each other just off shore. Both split almost in half and started to sink. Fortunately the GLBC got there in time to save most of the crew and passengers.

And on hearing the news, once again the citizenry met and took up a collection sufficient to get the survivors fed, clothed and on their way home. If you were to give Galveston a report card, one slot where it would get an A+ would be the one that assessed its dependability to be there for those who found themselves facing hard times.

But then like most good things, the charity of Galvestonians started to be abused. As more and more ships called on Galveston's port, it became apparent that they were frequently and purposely dumping passengers there after they learned they were out of money. They would leave them port-side to fend for themselves.

And the Texas Code had placed the cost of saving the destitute solely on the county where they showed up.

So even though the citizens of Galveston usually made enough voluntary contributions to solve the problems, this expected and frequent charity eventually started to wear thin on Galvestonians And while that provision of the Texas Code didn't particularly matter on the mainland, it did in Galveston.

So in 1850, the city got the legislature to put into law that every owner of a vessel docking in Galveston had to put up a $300 bond for each passenger left here, and it had to keep that bond up for 5 years. Everyone thought that would assure that no poor people would be left behind for the county to take care of. But that's not what happened.

Instead, Galvestonians found that enforcement of that law made passenger service to Galveston almost non-existent. Ships carrying passengers refused to call on Galveston. They went elsewhere, like New Orleans.

So Galvestonians had to quickly dream up a way around it. Here's what they had the legislature concoct. If within three days of its arrival, the steamship company would put up a $1 fee plus another $1 fee to pay for medical expenses for each crew member and passanger on the vessel, the $300 bond would be waived.

But as you might guess, even with the fee, there were those who slipped through the cracks. And Galveston always found a way to take care of them. And that's how it's been on the island for more than 145 years. Galveston takes care of its less fortunate.

Copyright 2003-2007 - William S. Cherry