This afternoon the 175′ USCG Coastal Buoy Tender Ida Lewis docked at the end of Straight Wharf, taking up all of the space soon to be filled by the mega yachts of summer. I cannot say that I know that much about these boats, but a quick Google search revealed some interesting history about the boat’s namesake.

Ida Lewis was born Idawalley Zorada Lewis in 1842. She gained national notoriety serving in the US Lighthouse Service at a time when few women were in the professional workforce. She overcame the biases of the time to become the official keeper of the Lime Rock Light Station in, during her 39-year tenure, she is credited with saving 18 lives. She was, in fact, once dubbed “the Bravest Woman in America.”

A tribute poem from the USCG website:

IDA LEWIS TO THE RESCUE

The mother is trimming her lamp above
For the day is wild and drear;
That the Lime Rock Light might greet the night
With its steady blaze of cheer.
The daughter sits at her work below
For the girl is used to toil;
Plying her oar with a willing hand,
Or feeding the lamp with oil.
The mother looks on the angry sea,
And thrills to a sight of dread
A sinking boat, with a drowning crew,
Mid billows that roll o’erhead.
She would bring them aid–but her
strength is past–
She can only weep and wail,
As with hurried step she hastens down
To tell the terrible tale.
But Ida, ready and prompt at need,
Has rescued many before;
Nor heeds the gale as o’er stone and weed
She flies to the rock-bound shore.
Her brow is bare to the beating rain;
She feels not the driving storm;
Though winds may moan and the gray gulls sail
And the wintry tide run strong.
Now quick to her boat, with practiced hand,
She launches the fragile bark
It hath brougrt ere [sic]  now through swelling seas
To the sinking man an ark!
But ne’er before, when it cleft the tide
From shipwreck to seek and save,
Was her woman’s arm so sorely tried
By the strife of wind and wave.
Then Ida on- to the rescue spring!
Of the three!  the boy is gone!
Though two still cling to the slippery keel,
Yet they cannot cling there long.
On Ida!  on!  Though the billows rage.
For the prey so nearly won!
Yet your feeble arm shall cheat their wrath,
And your work of love be done.