At sunrise on December 19, 1870, Kauai finally appeared close enough to touch. Five sailors had spent 31 days crossing the Pacific in a small open boat, living on failing provisions and steering by the tools and instincts of their trade. Somewhere 1,400 miles behind them, 93 shipmates waited on a remote coral island with no way to call for help.
The voyage had nearly succeeded. Then the surf took the boat.
Four men died within sight of land. One—Coxswain William Halford—survived to finish the mission. Because he did, every sailor still marooned from USS Saginaw came home.
A Ship Sent to the Edge of the Map
USS Saginaw was built at Mare Island Navy Yard and launched in 1859, the first warship constructed on the West Coast. She was a side-wheel steamer from a transitional age: steam machinery below, masts and sails above, and a shallow draft suited to working close to shore.
Her service took her across the Pacific to China and Japan, down the coasts of Mexico and Central America, and north to Alaska. In 1870 she carried engineers and hard-hat divers to Midway Atoll, where they spent months trying to open a channel through the reef for a future coaling station.
The work ended in October. Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery Sicard turned Saginaw toward San Francisco, but first ordered a stop at nearby Ocean Island—today’s Kure Atoll—to check for castaways. It was an old sailor’s duty: when passing a lonely hazard, look for anyone the sea may have left behind.
Before dawn on October 29, the rescuers became the shipwrecked.
Ten Minutes on the Reef
Breakers and reef were spotted too late. Sail was shortened and both anchors went down, but Saginaw struck hard. Within about ten minutes the hull was bilged. Within an hour the flooding reached the engine room and extinguished the boilers.
The ship could not be saved, but the people aboard could still work. All 93 made it onto Green Island inside the atoll. They salvaged food, water, tools, canvas, and anything else the surf allowed. Then the sea began breaking the wooden steamer apart.
Kure was outside normal shipping lanes. Waiting without sending word might mean starvation. Sicard and his officers decided that a boat had to attempt the long passage to the main Hawaiian Islands.
Five Volunteers and a Ship’s Gig
The crew modified the captain’s gig for an ocean voyage, adding sail, storage, and what protection they could. Many men volunteered. Five were selected: Executive Officer Lt. John G. Talbot, Quartermaster Peter Francis, Coxswain William Halford, and sailors John Andrews and James Muir.
On November 18, they shoved off. Their destination was Honolulu, roughly 1,400 miles across open ocean. The gig was never designed for that work. It was a ship’s boat—small, low, exposed, and carrying every pound of water and food the men dared load without sacrificing seaworthiness.
The navigation alone was unforgiving. A minor error repeated over weeks could send them past the islands and into empty ocean. The men had to keep a course while taking spray, rationing water, managing sail, and trying to sleep in a boat with no real shelter.
They endured 31 days. By the end, provisions had spoiled and the crew was badly weakened. Yet Talbot’s navigation brought them to Kauai.
The Breakers at Kalihi Kai
Reaching land was not the same as landing. Heavy surf guarded the shore at Kalihi Kai. The gig entered the breakers, capsized, and rolled in the white water. Talbot, Francis, Andrews, and Muir were lost during or shortly after the landing.
Halford survived—injured, exhausted, and the only man left to carry the news. Local residents helped him. He found passage onward, reached Honolulu, and reported that Saginaw’s survivors were still waiting at Kure.
The Kingdom of Hawaii became essential to the rescue. King Kamehameha V provided the inter-island steamer Kilauea, which sailed under Capt. Thomas Long. The steamer reached Kure in early January 1871 and recovered the marooned company. The long wait ended without another life lost.
The Coxswain Who Finished the Mission
Halford received the Medal of Honor for volunteering, surviving the voyage, and obtaining assistance. He later became a warrant officer and eventually retired as a chief gunner. His survival was extraordinary, but the heart of the story is larger than one man.
Talbot, Francis, Andrews, and Muir knew exactly what an open-boat passage could demand. They went anyway. The 93 people at Kure built order out of wreckage and held on. Hawaiian sailors, officials, and local residents turned one survivor’s message into a successful rescue.
Even the gig survived. Preserved as a Navy artifact, it remains a plain wooden witness to one of the hardest small-boat voyages in American naval history.
The Wreck Beneath the Breakers
In 2003, maritime archaeologists located Saginaw’s wreck at Kure. NOAA teams later documented anchors, cannon, paddle-wheel machinery, boiler parts, and other remains driven into the reef’s grooves. The same surf that destroyed the ship still makes the site dangerous to study.
That physical evidence matters. It anchors the story to a real vessel, a real reef, and a real decision made by sailors who had run out of easy choices.
Why the Saginaw Gig Still Matters
Good seamanship is sometimes described as avoiding trouble. That is only half the truth. When trouble can no longer be avoided, seamanship becomes the discipline to make the next sound decision—then the next one after that.
The men of the gig did not have a radio, an EPIRB, a rescue helicopter, or a forecast waiting on a screen. They had a boat, a course, a little sail, and each other. Their passage belongs beside the great stories of American service at sea, from John Paul Jones and Bonhomme Richard to the final watch of USCGC Tampa.
For more gear built around that same saltwater heritage, visit the Coast Guard & Navy collection.
Five men sailed for help. One reached the beach. Ninety-three came home. Sometimes that is what duty looks like.