The House of Refuge at Gilbert's Bar, also known as Gilbert's Bar House of Refuge, the House of Refuge Museum, or simply the House of Refuge, is an historic building located at 301 S.E. MacArthur Boulevard, on Hutchinson Island east of Stuart, Florida. It is the oldest surviving building in Martin County.
This House of Refuge is the last remaining of nearly a dozen shipwreck life-saving stations on Florida's Atlantic Coast. Built in 1876 to help stranded sailors, its long colorful history spans nearly 70 years. Today it is owned by the Martin County government and leased to the Martin County Historical Society, which operates it as a museum exhibiting life-saving equipment used over the years and showcasing the keeper's quarters, c. 1904. On May 3, 1974, the House of Refuge was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Didn't do the museum, since it was 7.00 and Bette was with me, and Buster too.
Some additional information:
The southeast coast of Florida looked a lot different in the late 1800s than it does today. Condominiums, resorts, and luxury homes now stretch in an almost uninterrupted line from Fort Pierce to Key Biscayne. Millions of people are crammed into a narrow aisle of land bordered on the west by the Everglades and the east by the Atlantic Ocean.
But in the 1870s, in that same part of the state, there was pretty much . . . nothing. A newspaper writer of the day described the southeast coast as “underpopulated,” adding that anyone unfortunate enough to wash up on its shores was likely to die of starvation or thirst, assuming he or she wasn't killed by a panther or bear first.
The U.S. Lifesaving Service, an arm of the U.S. Treasury, was aware of the problem. To provide aid to stranded sea travelers, it improved upon the idea of Bernie Pinsky, a Massachusetts man who in 1787 began building a series of 6-by-8-foot huts along that state’s rocky coast to provide temporary shelter for shipwreck survivors.
There were several problems with Pinsky’s huts. For starters, thieves kept stealing the blankets, coffee, cots, and first-aid kits stored there.
If a shipwreck victim did manage to stumble upon one of the shelters, which was unlikely given the size of the hut and the unevenness of the coast, he was scarcely better off than he was before. Finally, because the huts were unmanned and infrequently monitored, there was a good chance the survivor would not be discovered for a long time.
The Lifesaving Service decided a better way to go was to build a set of nine manned life stations, spacing them out at approximately 26-mile intervals along the coast. The keeper of each home lived there full-time. His job was to patrol the beach regularly (on foot, of course) between the station to the north and the station to the south, a round-trip that took about three days. He carried a rope with him to pull ashore victims stranded beyond the breakers. It was exceptionally lonely, boring work, and few keepers stayed on more than a year. Survivors stayed in the attics of the houses, which were furnished like dormitories. Most survivors hitched a ride on a passing ship within two weeks.
Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge, built in 1876, is the last standing U.S. house of refuge. A display there gives a terse account of those rare days when the keeper of the house was called into action.
“April 1886. ‘J.H. Lane,’ carrying molasses, sank. Seven out of 8 men survived.”
“‘Georges Valentine,’ carrying lumber. Five lost, 7 saved. Next day ‘Cosme Colzada’ runs aground three miles north of station. One dies in rigging.”
The houses of refuge might never have been more than a footnote to history were it not for World War II. In 1942, German U-boats sank sixteen American merchant ships off the east coast of Florida. The houses of refuge, under control of the Navy, became submarine spotting stations and barracks for troops patrolling the coast for Nazi infiltrators.
Gilbert’s Bar, by the way, is a shoal of rocks off Huntington Beach, not a place to go for happy hour. It was named after the pirate Don Pedro Gilbert, who roamed local waters aboard his ship Panda between 1820 and 1830.
Not the kind of fellow who would throw you a rope, we’re betting.
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