Nor are the South Shoal crew alone among lighthouse keepers in displays of heroism outside the duties required of them. Isaac H. Grant holds a silver medal given him by the Government for rescuing two men from drowning while he was keeper at White Head; and Keeper Marcus Hanna, of the Cape Elizabeth station, Maine, received a gold medal for the daring rescue of two sailors from a wreck during a severe storm, while Frederick Hatch, keeper of the Breakwater station at Cleveland was awarded the gold bar. The last mentioned badge of honor is granted only to one who has twice distinguished himself by a special act of bravery. It was given Hatch in the winter of 1898. A wreck occurred at night, just outside the breakwater. The eight people aboard made their way to the breakwater pier, but the heavy seas swept several of them back, and one lost his life. Pulling to the pier in a small boat, Keeper Hatch took off the captain's wife; but she was hardly in the boat before it was swamped and capsized. The woman was utterly exhausted and almost a dead weight; but though nearly overcome himself, Hatch, at the risk of his life, maintained his hold upon her until he could reach a line thrown from the light-station, with which he and his helpless burden were drawn to the lighthouse steps. Before that, and while a member of the life-saving crew at Cleveland, Hatch had helped to rescue twenty-nine persons from two vessels on two successive days during a terrific gale. CHAPTER IX LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE With each recurring autumn at nearly 300 points on our 8,000 miles of seacoast, careful preparations begin for the winter campaign of the life-saving service. Conducted in the face of constant peril and hardship, this annual battle with disaster, storm and death is a peaceful, yet always glorious one. During the year 1905 alone it resulted in the saving of more than 4,000 lives and the rescue of nearly $8,000,000 worth of property, imperilled by wreck and storm, all of which would otherwise have been lost. The United States Life-saving Service is now the most complete and effective organization of its kind in the world, furnishing a model and pattern for those of other countries. The story of its rapid development during the last thirty-five years is also the inspiring record of the life work of one of our most sagacious and devoted public servants, Sumner I. Kimball, a modest, blue-eyed, kindly-faced man of middle age, whose untiring labors in this field long since gave him a foremost place among the great benefactors of his time.