History

Edwin J. Dirickson

physician, U.S. Marine-Hospital Service · active 1898

Acting Assistant Surgeon of the United States Marine-Hospital Service, stationed at Berlin, Maryland, and the doctor the Ocean City life-saving crew telegraphed for. After the dory capsize of 13 April 1898 he took charge of the two rescued fishermen and wrote to the General Superintendent of the Life-Saving Service commending surfman A. C. Carey, whose action 'was most heroic, and reflects credit upon him as a man.' His letter is printed in full in the service's annual report.

In the record (1)

  1. 1898 · 1898-04-13

    Two sturgeon fishermen drown on the bar half a mile below the life-saving station; surfman Albert C. Carey takes out a second dory and dives, fully clothed, to save a sinking man.

    At about 6.20 on the morning of 13 April 1898 a dory carrying Charles W. Powell, Frank Parker, William J. Purnell and Joshua Quillin capsized on the bar some 150 yards offshore, half a mile south-southwest of the Ocean City Life-Saving Station, Fifth District, coast of Maryland. The crew fished sturgeon for a local firm; the weather was clear with a light northwest breeze but the surf was too high for a fishing boat. Surfman Albert C. Carey, on patrol to the southward, saw two dories preparing to launch, ran to argue them out of it, and reached the second boat only as the first swamped. He asked leave to take charge of the second dory; Thomas Richardson and John W. Quillin went with him. They pulled Joshua Quillin aboard, then reached William J. Purnell, who had already sunk two or three feet below the surface — 'Carey now rose up, and with all his clothes upon him dived boldly into the water beneath the sinking man and bore him to the surface and alongside the boat.' Purnell was resuscitated on the sand and moved to the station; Keeper Dunton and the crew took over the care of the rescued men and telegraphed for Dr. Edwin J. Dirickson of the Marine-Hospital Service at Berlin. Powell's body was recovered from the surf about a mile below the station, tangled in the seine; Parker's two days later, six miles south. Dr. Dirickson wrote to the General Superintendent on 21 April commending Carey's 'noble effort... at the imminent peril of his own life.' The Wilmington Evening Journal carried the story from Ocean City on 14 April.

    The service's own annual report calls Carey's judgment 'faultless.' If he is the Albert C. Carey elected to the city council in 1896 — the only resident on that board — then the town's councilman spent the following spring diving under a drowning man in an April surf.

    United States Life-Saving ServiceAlbert C. CareyCapt. Joshua J. Dunton

    Source · checked 2026-08-06