History

Sidney Wilson

rescuer · active 1899

A boy from Snow Hill who on 9 August 1899 went three times into a heavy surf at Ocean City and brought out six bathers — H. L. Overstreet, Dr. Wm. M. Newall and, on the third attempt, one of the Misses Bunting, whom he caught by the hair as she went down for the last time. One man, from Wilmington, drowned in the same incident.

In the record (1)

  1. 1899 · 1899-08-09

    Charles Alfred Bliss of Washington drowns in front of the Ocean City life-saving station on 9 August 1899 while four other bathers are pulled out alive — and his father tells the newspapers the patrol was not satisfactory.

    At half past twelve on Wednesday 9 August 1899, Charles Alfred Bliss — twenty-seven, cashier of the Washington agency of the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company, son of Alfred G. Bliss, chief clerk of the Bureau of Internal Revenue — was caught in an eddy beyond the breakers at Ocean City and carried out. He had come down the previous Saturday for a fortnight with Dr. W. M. Newell, and two days earlier had written home that he had sailed that day over the spot where the Birney boys drowned. "Mr. Bell, of the life-saving crew, heard Mr. Bliss cry for help and ran to the station to get out a boat. While the life-saving men were making ready, several other bathers who were beyond their depth became exhausted and began to cry for help" — the Misses Bessie and Alice Hunting and Miss Geeting of Baltimore, and Dr. Newell. Sidney Wilson of Snow Hill, a youth of fifteen, went into the breakers and brought Bessie Hunting ashore. His shouting turned the crowd to Alice, and the Rev. Francis Y. Nichols of Princeton dived for her, held her up, and got her in with Charles R. Gantz of Baltimore and a Mr. Strauss; it took some time to resuscitate her. The Misses Hunting were rescued in front of Mount Pleasant Cottage. A hundred yards below, in front of the life-saving station, Raleigh DeShields — son of Major De Shields of the Atlantic Hotel, and himself a boy — held the exhausted Dr. Newell up, taking a badly scratched shoulder and neck for it, until Sid Wilson reached them and the lifeboat, just launched, took all three off. DeShields then pulled Miss Geeting out. As the lifeboat crossed the first breaker looking for Bliss, Bob Purnell of Ocean City and Charles Gantz saw the body, dived from the boat and brought it up. It had been in the water about an hour; four doctors failed to revive it, and it was laid in a room of the life-saving station and embalmed there by Undertaker J. E. Wise of Berlin. Bliss was buried from his parents' house at 928 East Capitol Street on 11 August and interred in Congressional Cemetery. His father did not let it go: "Mr. A. G. Bliss, father of the drowned man, today said it appeared strange that the life-saving service at Ocean City was so long in rendering assistance. It did not appear to him that the patrol of the beach at Ocean City was satisfactory, otherwise he did not think an hour would have been consumed in the rescue of his boy." Alfred G. Bliss died four months later, on 9 December 1899; both Washington papers said his health had declined steadily from the day his son drowned at Ocean City.

    The strongest thing ever said against the Ocean City life-saving station in the nineteenth century was said by a Treasury official whose son had just died in front of it, and it was printed in the capital's evening paper. Thirty-one years before the Beach Patrol, the surf in front of the hotels was being worked by a fifteen-year-old and a hotel manager's son.

    Ocean City Life-Saving Station MuseumAtlantic HotelUnited States Life-Saving ServiceCharles Alfred BlissMaj. George D. De Shields

    Source · checked 2026-08-11