First Name:
Charles
Last Name:
Bowen
Type: Light Keeper
Collection / Donor:
Middle Initial:
K.
Born:
1849
Died:
1900.09.08
Place(s)
Place:
Title / Position:
Principal Lighthouse Keeper
Cause of Termination:
Died
Year Started:
1899
Year Departed:
1900
Begin Salary:
680
End Salary:
680
Source:
Registers of Lighthouse Keepers, Newspaper Article
More Information
Entered by:
Entered Date:
Nov 13, 2018
The 1900 Galveston Hurricane and the Activities of U.S. Lighthouse Service Personnel in America’s Worst Natural Disaster
William H. Thiesen, PhD
Coast Guard Atlantic Area Historian
On the night of the hurricane, the storm surge drove several steamers against the hull of the British freighter Kendall Castle. Dislodged from its mooring, the large British cargo vessel blew down on top of Halfmoon Shoal Lighthouse and continued drifting for another ten miles to Texas City. The ship’s collision with the Halfmoon Shoal Light resulted in the obliteration of the lighthouse and the death of its keeper, Captain Charles K. Bowen, whose body was never found. As one witness indicated, “we passed within a few hundred yards of where the Halfmoon Lighthouse once stood, but could see no evidence of the lighthouse, it being completely washed away.”