A short time previous to the seventh day of December, 1926, a storm of considerable violence had prevailed all over the North Atlantic and in and around the waters of Massachusetts Bay and along the shores of Cape Cod. The temperature had been low for several days, and high easterly winds with frequent flurries of snow and sleet, and the sea was running riot all over the ocean from Maine to Nantucket Shoals. Under these conditions, late in the afternoon of the 7th, the three masted schooner W. H. Reinhart, Capt. Barton, from Bangor for Philadelphia, with a load of lumber, was driven hard and fast upon the outlying sand bars at Race Point, about half way between Race Point Coast Guard Station and the Light. Several of the crew were more or less frost bitten and exhausted by the trying conditions with which their vessel had been beaten about in the storms. The Coast Guard men were promptly on the scene and after a hard struggle succeeded in taking off from the vessel Capt. Barton and the seven members of his crew and rushed them to the Coast Guard Station. The storm continued and before daylight next morning the schooner showed unmistakable signs of going to pieces, and later the mizzen mast smashed off and fell into the sea. The ever rising gale swept the big waves in torrents over the deck of the stranded craft and after a while tearing much of her cargo of lumber from her decks and scattered it along the shore, men on the shore were able to secure a considerable portion of the deck load which had come driving in with the sea. The owner of the cargo then contracted with E. Hayes Small to salvage the lumber and deliver it in Provincetown or some nearby point from which it could be sent to destination. Mr. Small, manager of the Highland Hotel, ten miles away, kept on his farm there eight strong horses which had been accustomed to work on the beaches and sands. The contract provided that he should use whatever lumber was needed for the construction of a suitable shed or stable in which his horses could be kept near the wreck. The horses were, with grain and hay, removed to the beach and three men left there to watch and care for them. This stable was necessary because of the distance from the hotel which barred going back and forth every day. Rapid progress was made in recovering the cargo. Then the stripping from the vessel of all material of any value began. Rigging, sails, anchors and material of various kinds were brought ashore at every favorable opportunity. [Illustration: WHAT THE SEAS DO AT RACE POINT, CAPE COD] In the meantime the vessel was being pounded to pieces. The next storm tore away the mainmast and the hull became more and more battered until finally the foremast toppled into the sea and only the smashed up hulk lay scattered on the storm-swept shore.