Shipwreck of the British Bark, Syringa Green Run Station, Maryland

by Suzanne Hurley 

Green Run, Maryland
The Green Run Life-Saving Station
on Assateague Island was commissioned in 1875. It was the first life-saving station to be built on the Maryland coast. This station responded to 
fourteen major shipwrecks.  
Photograph collection of Richard Tittermary, LCDR, USCG

From the 1881 Annual Report of the United States Life-Saving Service

Edited by the Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum
*Minor editorial privileges were taken to clarify the text and writing style of the period. 
March 3 -- The British bark Syringa, of Scarborough, England, bound from Pernambuco, Brazil, to Philadelphia, with a cargo of sugar in bags and a crew of thirteen men, stranded on the outer bar of Green Run Inlet, three miles and a half north of Station No. 5, Fifth District, (Maryland.) The patrol discovered her at a little after 5 o'clock in the morning. He fired a Coston signal, and hastened to report at the station.

At 6:10 a.m., the surf-boat was launched and manned, and after a hard pull of more than two hours arrived alongside the wreck, which was boarded by the keeper. The captain reported that he had run his vessel ashore to save the lives of his crew, as she was leaking badly and his men were so exhausted that they were unable longer to work at the pumps. He wished to send a dispatch to his consignees in Philadelphia; so the keeper took the mate and two seamen ashore for that purpose, and a messenger was sent on horseback to the signal station at Ocean City. 

In launching to return to the vessel the surf-boat filled, was backed in shore again and bailed out, and then pulled a second time out to the bark. The vessel now was in such a condition that the captain determined to abandon her, and four men and their effects were taken into the surf-boat and conveyed to the shore opposite the wreck. The ship's long-boat, with three of the Syringa's crew and their baggage, accompanied the surf-boat on this trip.

After landing the men the boat was again launched, and a third trip made to the vessel. This time the captain and one man, who were on the wreck, were taken into the boat and rowed down to the station, arriving at 11:10 a.m. The remainder of the crew walked from the point at which they had been put ashore, arriving at the station at noon. 

When the vessel was abandoned she had six feet of water in the hold. At 1 p.m., the wind increased to a gale, a high surf arose, and within an hour the vessel began to break up. At 5 p.m. the vessel went to pieces, and was swept away by the current, nothing of any value being cast ashore. The thirteen rescued men were succored at the station three days.