THE ST. MARKS lighthouse has stood proud and tall in its present location since 1842. From its highest point, the magnificent prism lenses purchased in Paris over 150 years ago, shone out to sea fifteen miles, leaving little undisclosed to the silent tower. With its vigilant, all-seeing eye lighting the waters it surveys, it has witnessed much history and remains the sole bearer of a multitude of secrets.

Keepers of the light ran in the blood of several generations of the Gresham family of Tallahassee. Men of the sea looked to these keepers, both men and women, for their safety for 65 years, from 1892-1957. John Gresham, his wife Lela Fine Gresham and their eight children lived together with the children’s teacher for 31 years. From 1918-1949, they shared the four room keepers’ quarters. The family supplemented bountiful seafood, ducks, geese and wild game with foods from small gardens and fruit trees around the lighthouse.

St. Marks lighthouse stands sentinel over the ship with no name. Photo by Christine Barnes, The Northfield News At low tide, north and west of the lighthouse, there is a secret, and only the barest skeletal remains are visible. Here lies the disintegrating steel hull of a ship with no name, but a ship with a noble past. Facing east, as though awaiting the break of day and her salvation, on a black night with no crew to mourn her loss, no captain to give the final salute, she sank in flames, her body broken and shattered on the bottom of the bay. The year was 1928, and precious little is yet known about her history.

Her hull is 8 ft. 7 in. She is 144 ft. long and 21 ft. wide, built to last. No one knows from whence she came. World War began around 1917. Common wartime practice included mass production of ships called ‘subchasers’, as well as conversion of private yachts for the same purpose. Subchasers were fast. Private yachts were generally fast, well-built, and required minimal alterations to convert them. There is speculation that the ship with no name was probably a beloved private yacht, generously donated to the defense of our nation during World War I.

Subchasers protected convoys in European waters, and also pursued and destroyed enemy submarines. An additional fleet of these ships guarded the harbors and coasts of the United States. The ship with no name that lies in the waters off the St. Marks lighthouse is surely not mass produced: examination of her battered hull shows no indication that she conforms to the specs of such subchasers. In fact, evidence supports that she was actually constructed early in the 20th century.

Further evidence gathered by divers interested in research of the ship’s wreckage indicates that conversion to a subchaser was probably completed at the Vineyard Boat Building Company of Milford, Delaware in 1918. She was then sold to the U. S. Navy. Records indicate that one subchaser was sold to the state of Florida in 1923. She was given only a number: SC144.

Perhaps this ship with no name is SC 144, perhaps not. If she is SC144, she patrolled the eastern coastal waters, and acted as a mine sweeper near Cape May, New Jersey. Mass produced ships at that time were powered by gas or diesel. This converted yacht powered her twin screws by steam. With a few modest guns and an out-ofdate engine, she kept her crew safe and guarded the coast.

After the war, it may be that the ship remained in service with the Florida Shellfish Commission. But on a dark night in 1928, her untold story came to an end: an on-board generator caught fire, and quickly engulfed the ship in flames. Her steel hull buckled when she hit the bottom. No artifacts were ever recovered, and metal from her buckled hull was salvaged for use in World War II.

The ship with no name continues to waste into oblivion, covered by ocean creatures seeking a home. Oyster shells and barnacles cover her rusting hull. She lists to starboard. The tides ebb and flow, the winds blow and waters rush over her remains. The red and gold sky foretells the sun’s rise. The noble craft’s bow still points like a compass to the beginning of a new day, her true story yet untold.