Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

On the cover of the July 31st, 1869 edition of Harper's Weekly, there was a portrait of a steely-looking woman in a long dress.

Her arms crossed, not the slightest hint of a smile on her face.

The caption identified her as Miss Ida Lewis, the heroine of Newport. She is almost totally

forgotten now, but back in her day, Ida Lewis, Miss Ida Lewis, was a national hero, a lighthouse operator who rode into

the stormy waters of Newport Harbor in Rhode Island to rescue mariners in distress.

How many people did she save?

Nobody knows for sure.

A dozen, maybe two dozen, but enough to become front-page news for VIPs to clamor to

meet her, for a polka titled, The Ocean Waves Dashed Wildly High, to be written in her honor.

Lewis was an unlikely national hero.

She was shy, for one thing, and she took up her post at the Lime Rock Lighthouse after her

father, a sea captain, suffered a stroke.

But the heroine of Lime Rock, as she became known, was intrepid and brave. Her first rescue was at age 15, when she rode out

to save two boys whose boat capsized. One time, she used a clothesline to rescue two men who had

fallen through the harbor's ice. Another time, she saved two sailors, then went back to rescue their sheep. She wasn't

instantly famous, though. In 1869, after she saved two soldiers from drowning in the harbor,

the New York Times wrote, she never hears the voice of distress night or day without jumping

into her little craft and proceeding to the scene of distress night or day without jumping into her little craft and

proceeding to the scene of trouble.

The Times added, it is a pity that no testimonial has ever been given to this lady for

the many lives she has saved. The Fourth of July that year was declared Ida Lewis Day, and Newport presented her with three cheers and a new boat.

...