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Graveyard of the Atlantic: Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast
This is a factual account, written in the pace of fiction, of hundreds of dramatic losses, heroic rescues, and violent adventures at the stormy meeting place of northern and southern winds and waters -- the Graveyard of the Atlantic off the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
288 pages, Paperback
First published June 14, 1952
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August 11, 2025
The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras, North Carolina, may have taken its name, at least in part, from this 1952 book. Hatteras, after all, is one of those Outer Banks coastal towns that look out upon a singularly treacherous stretch of Atlantic Ocean waters. From Hatteras, residents looked out at ships in distress; and from Hatteras, surfmen of the United States Lifesaving Service courageously went out in surfboats to try to rescue the crews and passengers of ships trapped in areas like Diamond Shoals. The designation of this part of the North Carolina coast as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” was common among Outer Banks residents; but when a young Outer Banks writer named David Stick published in 1952 a book titled Graveyard of the Atlantic: Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast, he ensured that that nickname for that stretch of coast would remain forever known, worldwide.
Stick was originally from New Jersey; but when his family moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, he found in childhood the region with which he would forever be identified. He studied at the University of North Carolina, served as a Marine Corps combat correspondent during the Second World War, and returned home to the Outer Banks after the war. There, he continued with his journalistic work, sold real estate, and operated a rare-books store. All the while, he diligently compiled the primary source material that eventually formed the basis for Graveyard of the Atlantic.
This book proceeds chronologically, starting with those long-ago day when colonial mariners ran afoul of the dangers of North Carolina coastal waters. In June of 1585, “the Tiger, flagship of Sir Richard Grenville’s fleet…stranded in Ocracoke Inlet while attempting to reach Roanoke Island with Sir Walter Raleigh’s colonists in June, 1585” (p. 5). Thus Stick shows how the history of Outer Banks shipwrecks is as old as the European exploration of the region.
That history of shipwrecks in the Graveyard of the Atlantic, in Stick’s reading, always reflects what is going on in the larger history of the United States and the world. For instance, the American Civil War of 1861-65 saw an upsurge in sinkings, as transports and gunboats for both the Union and the Confederacy, as well as blockade runners seeking to evade the U.S. Navy’s blockade of the Southern coast, sank in storm waters or were destroyed in combat. Stop at the visitor center for the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, and walk across North Carolina Route 12 to the beach, and you will see part of the transport for the transport U.S.S. Oriental sticking up out of the water, where it has been ever since it ran aground during a sea storm on May 8, 1862 – an impressive reminder of the treacherous nature of this stretch of coast.
Perhaps the most famous Civil War casualty of the Graveyard of the Atlantic was the ironclad warship U.S.S. Monitor – the ship that had prevented the rebel ironclad C.S.S. Virginia from destroying the entire U.S. blockading fleet at Hampton Roads, Virginia. The Monitor was well-designed for operations in shallow, protected waters like those of Hampton Roads; but it was not designed for deep-sea operations. And when she was being towed south by the steamer U.S.S. Rhode Island for operations against rebel positions in South Carolina, the Monitor began taking on water in a heavy storm, and eventually sank with the loss of 16 of the 63 sailors on board.
Stick remarks that “there have been recent claims that the remains of the Monitor have been discovered” (p. 53). In 1952, such claims may have been premature; but the remains of the Monitor were indeed discovered in 1973. Today, a visitor to the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, can see various parts of the Monitor, including the ship’s iconic rotating gun turret, and can thus pay tribute to what Stick calls “the gallant little vessel which helped so dramatically to revolutionize the concepts of naval warfare, only to meet an ignominious end in the Atlantic Graveyard” (p. 53). Personally, I would have used a word like “unfortunate” rather than “ignominious,” but Stick unquestionably captures well the drama and the tragedy of the Monitor’s final voyage.
For many years, throughout the age of sail and well into the age of steam, there seems to have been an unspoken assumption that not much could be done about the human toll of the sea disasters that plagued the Outer Banks. But tragedies like the loss of the steamer Huron at Nags Head in November of 1877 (with 103 lives lost), and the destruction of the steamer Metropolis at Currituck Beach in January of 1878 (with 85 lives lost), occurred at a time when “the Federal Government was in the process of organizing lifesaving facilities along the North Carolina coast” (p. 105). While the machinations of some politicians initially hampered the initial efforts at developing a strong lifesaving service, Stick finds that the “efficient, brave, and loyal men” of the United States Lifesaving Service accomplished “some of the most daring rescues in the history of lifesaving…on the North Carolina coast” (p. 105).
Indeed, a large part of the remaining chapters of Graveyard of the Atlantic consists of examples of the heroism with which the men of the U.S. Lifesaving Service responded to one maritime disaster after another. When the three-masted schooner E.S. Newman ran aground near Pea Island Station in October of 1896, the ship’s captain had particular reason to worry, as his wife and their 3-year-old daughter were passengers on the vessel. Fortunately for everyone on board the E.S. Newman, the Pea Island Station was directed by Keeper Richard Etheridge. The only African American directing a lifesaving station on the North Carolina coast, Etheridge was “one of the most experienced, able, and daring lifesavers in the entire service” (p. 156), and his crew – all African American as well – shared their commander’s dedication and courage.
Those qualities were much needed on this occasion, for the harsh weather conditions meant that a breeches buoy could not be fired out to the ship. Two volunteers among the surfmen, who “had served under Dick Etheridge long enough to understand that nothing was proved impossible until it was tried”, actually waded out to the ship, carrying heavy line that they then used to bring the crew and passengers of the E.S. Newman to shore, one by one by one. Thus it was that the captain, his wife, their daughter, and six crewmen were “carried from their waiting graves to safety on the flooded beach. Dick Etheridge, and the brave men under his command, had accomplished the near impossible once again” (p. 158).
Another story of comparable courage and resourcefulness took places during the First World War, after the German submarine U-117 laid mines near Wimble Shoals. The British tanker Mirlo, fully loaded with gasoline, struck one of those mines on August 6, 1917, and the explosion sent burning gasoline flying all over the waters. Those members of the Mirlo’s crew who made it to the lifeboats faced the imminent prospect of being burned to death.
Captain John Allen Midgett, commander of the Chicamacomico Life Saving Station, led the rescue effort, and Stick describes his efforts thus:
Men do strange things in an emergency – strange and brave and wonderful things. Captain John Allen Midgett’s next action was all of these, and more, for without a moment’s hesitation he turned his wooden boat toward that blazing sea, ordered the crew to man their oars. He skillfully maneuvered her down that narrow open passage, moving directly through great sheets of fire at times, constantly enveloped in black smoke, hardly able to see for the darkness around him. The overturned lifeboat was reached at last; the six men, exhausted, burned and blackened, hysterical and unbelieving, were pulled into the surfboat….And then, his mission completed, [Captain Midgett] turned about and headed toward the open sea. (p. 207)
Today, the town that was once Chicamacomico is called Rodanthe; and at the northern end of town, just below where Outer Banks surfers seek to catch some waves, there is a beachfront community that is called Mirlo Beach, in remembrance of the destruction of the Mirlo and the brave rescue of most of its crew.
(In a sad example of the contemporary problems and challenges that face the Outer Banks of North Carolina, many of the expensive and luxurious Mirlo Beach homes that were featured in the 2008 romance film Nights in Rodanthe are now threatened by climate change, beach erosion, and rising sea levels.)
Stick’s appreciation for the heroism of Outer Banks surfmen is palpable. So is his first-hand knowledge of the history of Outer Banks shipwrecks – as when he says of the wreck of the Carl Gerhard, a Swedish steamer that sank off Kill Devil Hills in September of 1929, that “On numerous occasions this writer has fished there, wearing a pair of water-tight goggles and armed with a home-made spear, diving down beneath the surface, into the open hatches of the twisted and rust-covered Greek tanker, in quest of the giant sheepshead and other fish which make their home there in the bowels of the ship” (pp. 218-19). Stick doesn’t just know the Outer Banks, he loves the Outer Banks, and his knowledge of, and love for, the region suffuses every page of Graveyard of the Atlantic.
And those qualities may have helped to make Graveyard of the Atlantic, arguably, one of the most important books in the history of university-press publishing. Before the University of North Carolina Press in Chapel Hill published Stick’s book in 1952, many a university press was best-known for publishing otherwise obscure scholarly monographs that would help professors at said university gain tenure and thus obtain a measure of job security. Since Graveyard of the Atlantic, by contrast, university presses throughout the U.S.A. have made a point of publishing works of regional history and culture.
We have, in short, much to thank David Stick for. And there are many good reasons why Graveyard of the Atlantic is available in the local-interest section of every Outer Banks bookshop from Corolla in the north to Ocracoke in the south. This book is a classic, pure and simple.
Stick was originally from New Jersey; but when his family moved to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, he found in childhood the region with which he would forever be identified. He studied at the University of North Carolina, served as a Marine Corps combat correspondent during the Second World War, and returned home to the Outer Banks after the war. There, he continued with his journalistic work, sold real estate, and operated a rare-books store. All the while, he diligently compiled the primary source material that eventually formed the basis for Graveyard of the Atlantic.
This book proceeds chronologically, starting with those long-ago day when colonial mariners ran afoul of the dangers of North Carolina coastal waters. In June of 1585, “the Tiger, flagship of Sir Richard Grenville’s fleet…stranded in Ocracoke Inlet while attempting to reach Roanoke Island with Sir Walter Raleigh’s colonists in June, 1585” (p. 5). Thus Stick shows how the history of Outer Banks shipwrecks is as old as the European exploration of the region.
That history of shipwrecks in the Graveyard of the Atlantic, in Stick’s reading, always reflects what is going on in the larger history of the United States and the world. For instance, the American Civil War of 1861-65 saw an upsurge in sinkings, as transports and gunboats for both the Union and the Confederacy, as well as blockade runners seeking to evade the U.S. Navy’s blockade of the Southern coast, sank in storm waters or were destroyed in combat. Stop at the visitor center for the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, and walk across North Carolina Route 12 to the beach, and you will see part of the transport for the transport U.S.S. Oriental sticking up out of the water, where it has been ever since it ran aground during a sea storm on May 8, 1862 – an impressive reminder of the treacherous nature of this stretch of coast.
Perhaps the most famous Civil War casualty of the Graveyard of the Atlantic was the ironclad warship U.S.S. Monitor – the ship that had prevented the rebel ironclad C.S.S. Virginia from destroying the entire U.S. blockading fleet at Hampton Roads, Virginia. The Monitor was well-designed for operations in shallow, protected waters like those of Hampton Roads; but it was not designed for deep-sea operations. And when she was being towed south by the steamer U.S.S. Rhode Island for operations against rebel positions in South Carolina, the Monitor began taking on water in a heavy storm, and eventually sank with the loss of 16 of the 63 sailors on board.
Stick remarks that “there have been recent claims that the remains of the Monitor have been discovered” (p. 53). In 1952, such claims may have been premature; but the remains of the Monitor were indeed discovered in 1973. Today, a visitor to the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, can see various parts of the Monitor, including the ship’s iconic rotating gun turret, and can thus pay tribute to what Stick calls “the gallant little vessel which helped so dramatically to revolutionize the concepts of naval warfare, only to meet an ignominious end in the Atlantic Graveyard” (p. 53). Personally, I would have used a word like “unfortunate” rather than “ignominious,” but Stick unquestionably captures well the drama and the tragedy of the Monitor’s final voyage.
For many years, throughout the age of sail and well into the age of steam, there seems to have been an unspoken assumption that not much could be done about the human toll of the sea disasters that plagued the Outer Banks. But tragedies like the loss of the steamer Huron at Nags Head in November of 1877 (with 103 lives lost), and the destruction of the steamer Metropolis at Currituck Beach in January of 1878 (with 85 lives lost), occurred at a time when “the Federal Government was in the process of organizing lifesaving facilities along the North Carolina coast” (p. 105). While the machinations of some politicians initially hampered the initial efforts at developing a strong lifesaving service, Stick finds that the “efficient, brave, and loyal men” of the United States Lifesaving Service accomplished “some of the most daring rescues in the history of lifesaving…on the North Carolina coast” (p. 105).
Indeed, a large part of the remaining chapters of Graveyard of the Atlantic consists of examples of the heroism with which the men of the U.S. Lifesaving Service responded to one maritime disaster after another. When the three-masted schooner E.S. Newman ran aground near Pea Island Station in October of 1896, the ship’s captain had particular reason to worry, as his wife and their 3-year-old daughter were passengers on the vessel. Fortunately for everyone on board the E.S. Newman, the Pea Island Station was directed by Keeper Richard Etheridge. The only African American directing a lifesaving station on the North Carolina coast, Etheridge was “one of the most experienced, able, and daring lifesavers in the entire service” (p. 156), and his crew – all African American as well – shared their commander’s dedication and courage.
Those qualities were much needed on this occasion, for the harsh weather conditions meant that a breeches buoy could not be fired out to the ship. Two volunteers among the surfmen, who “had served under Dick Etheridge long enough to understand that nothing was proved impossible until it was tried”, actually waded out to the ship, carrying heavy line that they then used to bring the crew and passengers of the E.S. Newman to shore, one by one by one. Thus it was that the captain, his wife, their daughter, and six crewmen were “carried from their waiting graves to safety on the flooded beach. Dick Etheridge, and the brave men under his command, had accomplished the near impossible once again” (p. 158).
Another story of comparable courage and resourcefulness took places during the First World War, after the German submarine U-117 laid mines near Wimble Shoals. The British tanker Mirlo, fully loaded with gasoline, struck one of those mines on August 6, 1917, and the explosion sent burning gasoline flying all over the waters. Those members of the Mirlo’s crew who made it to the lifeboats faced the imminent prospect of being burned to death.
Captain John Allen Midgett, commander of the Chicamacomico Life Saving Station, led the rescue effort, and Stick describes his efforts thus:
Men do strange things in an emergency – strange and brave and wonderful things. Captain John Allen Midgett’s next action was all of these, and more, for without a moment’s hesitation he turned his wooden boat toward that blazing sea, ordered the crew to man their oars. He skillfully maneuvered her down that narrow open passage, moving directly through great sheets of fire at times, constantly enveloped in black smoke, hardly able to see for the darkness around him. The overturned lifeboat was reached at last; the six men, exhausted, burned and blackened, hysterical and unbelieving, were pulled into the surfboat….And then, his mission completed, [Captain Midgett] turned about and headed toward the open sea. (p. 207)
Today, the town that was once Chicamacomico is called Rodanthe; and at the northern end of town, just below where Outer Banks surfers seek to catch some waves, there is a beachfront community that is called Mirlo Beach, in remembrance of the destruction of the Mirlo and the brave rescue of most of its crew.
(In a sad example of the contemporary problems and challenges that face the Outer Banks of North Carolina, many of the expensive and luxurious Mirlo Beach homes that were featured in the 2008 romance film Nights in Rodanthe are now threatened by climate change, beach erosion, and rising sea levels.)
Stick’s appreciation for the heroism of Outer Banks surfmen is palpable. So is his first-hand knowledge of the history of Outer Banks shipwrecks – as when he says of the wreck of the Carl Gerhard, a Swedish steamer that sank off Kill Devil Hills in September of 1929, that “On numerous occasions this writer has fished there, wearing a pair of water-tight goggles and armed with a home-made spear, diving down beneath the surface, into the open hatches of the twisted and rust-covered Greek tanker, in quest of the giant sheepshead and other fish which make their home there in the bowels of the ship” (pp. 218-19). Stick doesn’t just know the Outer Banks, he loves the Outer Banks, and his knowledge of, and love for, the region suffuses every page of Graveyard of the Atlantic.
And those qualities may have helped to make Graveyard of the Atlantic, arguably, one of the most important books in the history of university-press publishing. Before the University of North Carolina Press in Chapel Hill published Stick’s book in 1952, many a university press was best-known for publishing otherwise obscure scholarly monographs that would help professors at said university gain tenure and thus obtain a measure of job security. Since Graveyard of the Atlantic, by contrast, university presses throughout the U.S.A. have made a point of publishing works of regional history and culture.
We have, in short, much to thank David Stick for. And there are many good reasons why Graveyard of the Atlantic is available in the local-interest section of every Outer Banks bookshop from Corolla in the north to Ocracoke in the south. This book is a classic, pure and simple.
January 10, 2009
Some of the stories were quite interesting but some of it just sounded like a list of names and numbers.
March 11, 2020
This book is called the graveyard of the Atlantic it is about all of the ships that have sunk of the east coast of america particularity North and South Carolina. In the beginning of the book there is a map that shows you all of the ships that have sunk. These ships can be as far back as 1500 and can be as recent as 1940. Throughout the book you can look up a ship and it will give you a very detailed description of what happend and why/how that ship sunk.
This book is amazing especially if your in to boats like me. This book is very detailed and descriptive. It does not just talk about how and why particular ships have sunk. It talks about the types of sails the old ships used and how they navigated. Overall i would give this book a 5 out of 5.
This book is amazing especially if your in to boats like me. This book is very detailed and descriptive. It does not just talk about how and why particular ships have sunk. It talks about the types of sails the old ships used and how they navigated. Overall i would give this book a 5 out of 5.
June 20, 2024
Graveyard of the Atlantic: Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast by David Stick (University of North Carolina Press 1952) (910.45) (3955).
This book had been sitting on my basement bookshelf for years, and I never picked it up until this year. All of my life I’ve heard my family refer to North Carolina’s Outer Banks as “the graveyard of the Atlantic” because of the number of ships which have been lost along the coast. This book summarizes and compiles the highlights from the extant shipping records from the days of sail as well as the days of steam-powered ships.
The “outer banks” of North Carolina refers to the portion of a chain of coastal barrier islands which extends from Cape Hatteras north to the Virginia state line. Many ships have been grounded and lost because of the shifting underwater sandbars off of Hatteras. One of the most dangerous routes for ship traffic among many dangerous areas in the vicinity is the area in and around Diamond Shoals, Lookout Shoals, and Frying Pan Shoals.
This book is a very readable historical account of shipping on the East Coast.
I own a HB copy in good condition that I’ve owned for many years.
My rating: 7/10, finished 6/20/24 (3955).
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
November 7, 2024
The author, an obvious local, takes a dull, lifeless listing of tragedies, and weaves a compelling story, breathing life into statistics. It’s incomprehensible how many ships, and lives, were lost along this very short stretch of geography and hydrography. His portrayal is sensitive, yet also matter-of-fact. The people of the time lived much closer to death than we do now. At certain times of the year, transiting past the Outer Banks was a joy ride, at others, a gauntlet of death and disaster. The bravery and devotion of the life savers is remarkable, a proud tradition continued by our Coast Guard. Remarkable book, well worth the read.
August 21, 2017
This books provides factual information for all the boats shipwrecked off the coast of North Carolina. While some of the chapters were interesting with many human interest stories in them, some just gave numbers and dates. It got a little dry at times.
May 13, 2021
I love reading about shipwrecks - mostly in the Great Lakes area - and this book was full of the same exciting (call it warped fascination) kinds of stories. I liked this book a lot and am sure glad I bought it.
November 29, 2020
Half of the book's short stories are excellent. Half of the book's short stories are confusing and hard to follow.
May 21, 2021
Great read
September 21, 2016
A thorough account of the major shipwrecks that haunt the Outer Banks. I often felt I was there in the storms myself and was holding my breath to find out which ships had survivors and which did not.
What I really love is the formating of the book. It provides both long and short stories, making it a great book to keep by the bedside depending on how tired you are
What I really love is the formating of the book. It provides both long and short stories, making it a great book to keep by the bedside depending on how tired you are
December 4, 2010
I really enjoyed this book, which is a history of shipwrecks off the NC coast pretty much since they've been recorded. The author does a great job of creating narrative in some places, but just recounts facts in others. There is a nice since of progression though, looking at how lifesaving techniques, sailing trends and other things affected life on the Outer Banks and for those sailing alongside.
August 31, 2016
Amazing stories, all--you wouldn't think a shipwreck story could be thrilling when told back to back with roughly 100 other shipwreck stories, but you'd be wrong. Very well written, especially considering this is the sort of low print volume special interest/local history kind of book that you pick up in a museum gift shop while on vacation in the Outer Banks (which is exactly where I did get it).
November 22, 2008
Just the kind of book to read on a rainy day looking out over a leaden sea and just loving being at the beach. This boot really catches the flair and the life and death struggle that occurred off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Dr. Stick has done an excellent job in putting these stories together... Very good read!
January 8, 2016
This book was first written in the fifties and many of its attitudes and story telling techniques are very much of that era. That being said, it is a collection of incredible stories of lifesaving and survival on an amazingly dangerous coast, often in impossible conditions.
May 11, 2012
Interesting to those who crawl these beaches and islands.
April 3, 2017
Excellent book of factual short stories,. The Graveyard of the Atlantic is an area the Atlantic Ocean, off the Outer Banks of N.C., that is very treacherous. Sailing ships, before light houses were built, were lured in with the sight of land looking for safe harbor. So many ran aground and were smashed to pieces by the surf. Even now, vessels in bad weather end up there. If you were to dive there today you would still see ships' skeletons. The author, David Stick lives on the Outer Banks.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews