Question: What was the job of a “surfman” in North Carolina during the late 1800s through the mid-1900s?
Answer: A surfman served in the U.S. Life-Saving Service, established as a federal agency in 1871. Stationed along North Carolina’s coast, he patrolled beaches on foot or horseback, watched from towers, and rescued shipwrecked crews amid the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” until the service’s 1955 merger into the U.S. Coast Guard.
