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Joseph Francis, a shipbuilder, inventor, and father of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, was born in Boston in 1801. In an era of devastating shipwrecks, Francis devoted much of his life to developing equipment for rescue at sea. As a young boy, he constructed a small boat at his uncle’s shipyard, adding cork for extra buoyancy. At eighteen, he won his first design competition. In 1848, following an Act of Congress, the government sponsored the creation of life-saving facilities in New Jersey. Not surprisingly, Joseph Francis was awarded the contract. His design for lifeboats demonstrated the proper balance between weight and strength. He created stronger, lighter-weight hulls for his lifeboats by riveting together molded sheets of corrugated galvanized iron. He added air cases on either end of the boat to provide some self-righting capability. Francis’s lifeboats were used around the world from Prussia to Portugal to Canada and the U.S. On August 27, 1888, President Benjamin Harrison awarded Joseph Francis the Congressional Gold Medal for having saved “the lives of thousands.”Label
Timothy Dring, the President of the U.S. Life-Saving Service Heritage Association, recently visited the Old School House to see our Francis life-saving boat, the Gallinipper I. Mr. Dring's specialty is technical and design history of all rescue boats used by the United States Life-Saving Service/Coast Guard from the 1800s to present day. Mr. Dring confirmed that our boat is indeed one of the oldest life-saving crafts in America and is so rare because most similar boats were melted down to meet wartime needs for scrap iron. The Smithsonian, he assured us, would love to have our boat! He commended us for our restoration work and for the “stunning” display exhibit.
