Andrew John Gallagher

Summary

Andrew John “A. J.” Gallagher (1938–1980) served more than twenty years in the United States Coast Guard, enlisting at seventeen and retiring in 1976 as a Senior Chief Quartermaster. He was the son of John A. and Lillian Gallagher of St. James and, on his father’s side, a grandson of Elizabeth Green Gallagher. The Beaver Beacon tracked his career from a 1961 servicemen’s notice through his retirement ceremony fifteen years later.

History

The June 1961 servicemen’s column gave “A. J. Gallagher’s” address care of the Coast Guard Cutter Owasco, based at Fort Trumbull, Connecticut. That December, a fuller notice named him directly: “Johnny and Lillian Gallagher of St. James have just received word that their son, Andrew J., serving on the Coast Guard Cutter Owasco out of New London, Connecticut, has passed the test for First Class Quartermaster,” a rating that came through as he returned from a thirty-day Ocean Station assignment off Argentina and Newfoundland. The notice adds that “Andrew joined the service when he was 17 years old and has been with the Coast Guard for six years” — placing his enlistment around 1955, consistent with a birth year of about 1938.

The July 1973 Beacon reported the incident directly, under the headline “Disaster Averted”: while under tow by the tug American Girl, the fully loaded fuel barge Oil Queen rolled over in heavy seas midway between Charlevoix and St. James. Tug captain Jewell Gillespie towed the capsized barge into Sand Bay, then, after Coast Guard inspectors surveyed the damage, into St. James harbor, where the fuel cargo was pumped out by plugging the vent pipes and opening the bottom drain plugs. Cables were then run from the barge’s underside to two cranes and a winch truck, with another line to the American Girl and the tug Eager Beaver; “on a given signal by Chief Quartermaster A. J. Gallagher, son of John A. and Lillian Gallagher,” the machinery righted the barge with only a few gallons of spillage. The following month’s Beacon reported that Gallagher, “who is in the Coast Guard,” had been “recently commended for his fine work,” and separately identified him as the grandson of Elizabeth Green Gallagher.

Gallagher’s Coast Guard retirement ceremony was held February 26, 1976, at the Coast Guard base in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, before more than one hundred Coast Guardsmen. Over his twenty years of service he had served aboard cutters based in Buffalo, Duluth, Alaska, and Grand Haven; spent three years at the Coast Guard Institute in Oklahoma as a course writer; served in Seattle, including two six-month Antarctic cruises aboard the icebreaker Staten Island; and completed three and a half years as senior traffic controller and enforcement investigator for the Captain of the Port at Sault Ste. Marie. While serving aboard the cutter Staris in Alaska, his ship became the first American vessel to circumnavigate North America through the Northwest Passage. His decorations included the Coast Guard Good Conduct Ribbon with four bronze stars, the National Defense Ribbon, the Coast Guard Unit Commendation Medal, a Navy Meritorious Commendation Medal, the Coast Guard Achievement Medal, and the Antarctic Service Medal. He retired to a farm near Sault Ste. Marie with his wife, Patricia, and their three children, Kelly, Sean, and Patrick.

Significance

Gallagher’s career is documented at both ends by the Beaver Beacon: a 1961 enlisted sailor’s routine servicemen’s notice, and a 1976 retirement report covering more than two decades of Coast Guard service, including a Northwest Passage circumnavigation and Antarctic duty. The 1973 Oil Queen incident is the fullest documented account of his work while home on Beaver Island, and ties his Coast Guard career directly to the harbor his family lived beside.

Evidence and limits

The June 1961 notice gives only the abbreviated “A. J.” form; the December 1961 notice supplies the full name, parents, and vessel, and the December 1961 report’s enlistment-age detail supports the circa-1938 birth estimate used here. The cemetery index corroborates the matching full name, spouse Patricia Martin, and 1938–1980 lifespan. No source read for this article gives the date, place, or cause of his 1980 death.

Not the same man as Andrew Gallagher, son of Dominic Gallagher or Andrew “Andy Mary Ellen” Gallagher (1878–1939). This is the third Andrew Gallagher distinguished in this corpus, and the family record here resolves the relationship rather than leaving it a bare coincidence: this man is identified in 1973 as the grandson of Elizabeth Green Gallagher, who married Andrew “Andy Mary Ellen” Gallagher in 1907 — i.e., he is that Andrew Gallagher’s grandson, carrying the same given name forward a generation through his father John A. “Andy” Gallagher. He is not to be confused with either the son of Dominic Gallagher (living in Chicago in 1952) or his own grandfather.

Added 1 August 2026 · revised 5 August 2026. Recent changes