Point Allerton Lifesaving Station

The Point Allerton Life Saving Station is situated in its original location on Stony Beach at the entrance to Boston Harbor and at the foot of Telegraph Hill in Hull. It occupies a 7500 square foot lot on the south side of Nantasket Avenue; the property also includes another 3040 square feet of waterfront acreage across the Avenue. Neigh- boring properties include homes that have been or still are occupied by surfmen who served at the Station. At the top of Telegraph Hill is the Fort Revere National Register district which includes a Revolutionary War fort, telegraph signal stations, and the World War I era Fort Revere. The Station and Fort Revere 1ook out toward Boston Light (NR), the oldest lighthouse in the country..

The Station is a 1½ story Queen Anne style structure with a latter two story rear ell attached to its southeast corner. The walls are sheathed with clapboards while the roof is covered with cedar shingles. It rests on a modern poured concrete foundation and all windows are currently boarded up. size and placement. A small one story outbuilding with a gable roof stands directly behind the ell. The original portion of the station, constructed in 1889, is rectangular in plan and consists of two sections. The eastern section which contains kitchen, living and dining quarters, is enclosed by a pitched roof and faces gable end to the street. A center chimney rises through its ridge and two hip roof dormer pierce the eastern slope of its roof. The main entry is located west of center.

The western section, which orignally functioned as a boat room, is enclosed by a hip roof whose front slope is pierced by a latter oversized dormer.

(in one paragraph) Builder/Architect U.S. Corps of Engineers The Point Allerton Lite Saving Station possesses integrity of location, design, setting, materials, and workmanship. It is significant both for the central role it has played in Massachusetts maritime history and for its associations with Captain Joshua James, its first keeper and the most decorated life saver in United States history. The Station therefore meets criteria A and B of the National Register of Historic Places. The United States decided toestablish a Life Saving Service station at Point Allerton after Joshua James and his crew rescued 29 persons from four vessels wrecked in the shipping entrance to Boston Harbor during the great storm of November, 1888. the holder of the gold life saving medal of the U.S.

Treasury Deparmtent and the gold, silver, and bronze medals of the Massachusetts Humane Society. Appointed Keeper at the age of 62, Capt. James received the only waiver of the Keeper's age requirements given by the U.S. Congress. Between 1890 and his death in 1902, Capt. James and his crews rescued people from eighty-six shipwrecks which occurred within the jurisdiction of the Point Allerton Station. There were 556 persons on board these vessels. Only 16 of these lost their lives, and they were all lost in the terrible storm of November, 1898, under circumstances which placed them beyond human aid and which precluded even an attempt to assist them. The Station is also significant as a link between the earliest days of U.S. Lifesaving and current U.S. Lifesaving activity.

At the time it was built, the Point Allerton Life Saving Station replaced the exisitng small station that had been established by the Massachusetts Humane Society prior to 1874.