Winslow Griesser - Lorrie Halblaub
“The Bravest Man in Buffalo” The Buffalo Times, Sunday May 8, 1910
By Lorrie Halblaub
In a past article, we learned that in 1875, the first three Congressional Gold Lifesaving medals that were ever awarded by the United States Congress went to three Marblehead brothers. The medals are given to those who act with “extreme courage in great peril.” The brothers, Lucien, Hubbard, and Ai Clemons were honored for risking their lives to rescue crewmen from the ship Conseulo. That event led to the building of the Point Marblehead Lifesaving station in 1876. It was the forerunner of today’s Marblehead Coast Guard Station.
Not everyone knows that a fourth Marblehead man, Winslow Griesser, was awarded that same medal in November, 1900.
Born in 1856 at Marblehead, Ohio, Winslow was the son of John and Mary Griesser. His lifesaving service career began in 1876 at the Marblehead Station. At twenty, Winslow was a surfman under the tutelage of Lucien Clemons, who was the station’s first keeper.
Winslow married Julia Mulcahy in 1879. They had four children, two sons and two daughters; Daniel in 1880, Alice in 1881, William in 1886, and Francis in 1891.
Winslow managed to find time to become Marblehead’s first mayor when the village became incorporated in 1891. He served for two years, and then his brother Daniel became the second mayor.
In 1893, Winslow transferred to the newly formed Niagara Lifesaving Station in New York. Then in April of 1900,
Captain Winslow W. Griesser became the Commander of the Buffalo New York Lifesaving Station. His crew called him “The Old Man” even though he was younger than many of them.
On November 21st of that year, gale force winds of at least 80 mph were blowing across Lake Erie. Two stone boats, moored by a break wall that was under construction, broke free and were adrift. Captain Griesser and crew launched their lifeboat heading toward one of the stone boats when a great wave caused the lifeboat to “pitch-pole” (turn end over end) throwing the crew into the water. The lifeboat drifted ashore near the station and the lifesaving crew swam after it. Just as Captain Griesser landed, he got word that one of the stone boat workmen was clinging to a piling a quarter mile out in the surf. Well aware that they were risking their own lives, Captain Griesser and a crewman named Greenland attempted to swim to the stranded workman. There was a lot of debris in the water, and Greenland was knocked unconscious in the next big wave. Griesser, with a line tied to him and held by his men on shore, kept going alone. Several times, his progress was thwarted by waves and once by being struck in the back by a floating telegraph pole. Finally reaching the workman, the Captain tied the line around him. The man eventually was pulled, alive but unconscious, to the shore by the lifesaving crew. Griesser swam back to shore, where he collapsed.
Besides the lifesaving medal, Griesser was also made a member of the prestigious “American Cross of Honor.” He finished his career at the newly built Lorain Ohio Lifesaving Station. After his retirement, Griesser returned to Marblehead and built a house for himself and a second one for his daughter on Prairie Street near the Coast Guard Station.He died in 1931 at age 85 and is buried at St. Joseph Cemetery in Marblehead. In 2016 the Coast Guard honored Winslow Griesser by naming one of its new Sentinel-class cutters after him.
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