While on the way to a stop on the underground railroad, I paid a visit to the legacy of Richard Ethridge on Pea Island, in Manteo, N.C.
Captain Richard Etheridge, a Union Army veteran, became the first African-American to command a Life-Saving station when the service appointed him as the keeper of the Pea Island Life-Saving Station in North Carolina in 1880. It was an honor to walk the sacred ground of this historical landscape.
During my visit I was able to get a glimpse of the impact that Richard Etheridge's life had on society through the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum, and the Herbert M. Collins Boathouse.
The museum gives a detailed and distinctive account of the only lifesaving station in the US to have been manned by an all-Black crew, led by Richard Ethridge. Herbert Collins, was born in 1921 on Roanoke Island and was the last keeper of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station. The boathouse was dedicated in his name on October 2010.
