Throughout much of World War II, Sadie Carrie Owney Horton worked for the U.S. Merchant Marine on a barge (a flat-bottomed boat used for transporting freight) that operated along the eastern coasts of the United States and Canada. Horton’s service ultimately earned her the distinction of being the first documented female to serve on a Merchant Marine vessel during that global conflict.
The Merchant Marine, which traces its origins back to the American Revolutionary War, is an organization consisting of non-military mariners who serve on board both civilian and federally owned vessels. The mission of these mariners includes carrying cargo via navigable waters of the United States. In times of war, the Merchant Marine has been an auxiliary to the U.S. Navy and played a key role in transporting military personnel and supplies.
Horton was born on October 25, 1899, in the town of Ivor, Virginia. She married William Lee Horton Sr. in 1920. After the United States entered World War II on the side of the Allies, Sadie O. Horton initially worked as a riveter at the Consolidated Defense Plant in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
A new wartime chapter for the Hortons opened in the spring of 1942, however, following the tragic death of their 17-year-old son William Lee Horton Jr. He had been serving as a Merchant Marine seaman aboard the unarmed tugboat Menominee when this vessel, while towing three barges from Connecticut, was sunk by a German U-boat about 9.5 miles (15.1 kilometers) east of Metompkin Inlet on the Virginia coast. William Lee Horton Jr. was one of 18 crew members who lost their lives in that attack.
Sadie O. Horton and her husband subsequently moved from the vicinity of Elizabeth City to the North Carolina town of Williamston, where he took command of a Merchant Marine barge. Horton applied to serve with him as a crew member on that vessel. While the U.S. Maritime Commission rejected this application on the grounds that the Merchant Marine was not accepting women at the time, Horton was issued a U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) identification that would allow her to work on the barge. (Her photo from that USCG identification is included with this post.)
She went on to serve on the barge for a grand total of three years that encompassed 90 round trips altogether between Hampton Roads, Virginia, and points as far north as the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Sadie Horton’s responsibilities as a crew member included working as a cook, operating the boiler, and helping out in the wheelhouse. “You name it, that’s what she could do,” recalled her son Don many years later. Sadie Horton continued her service on the barge until December 31, 1946, more than a year after the end of the war.
Horton died in Elizabeth City on December 8, 1997, at the age of 98. (Her husband had passed away in 1970 at the age of 75.) It was not until February 2017 that she was posthumously issued a DD 214 honorable discharge from the U.S. military. This discharge, which Don Horton had vigorously advocated for on her behalf, became a formal acknowledgement of not only her longtime veteran’s status but also her unique claim to fame as the first woman on record to work on a Merchant Marine vessel during World War II.
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For more information on Sadie O. Horton, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadie_O._Horton
Transportation History 
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