Willie Romaine – Boy Hero
A Twelve-Year-Old in the Hudson
New York summers at the turn of the twentieth century were hot, crowded, and loud — the kind of days when children found their freedom not in parks, but along the river piers. On June 13, 1901, twelve-year-old Lawrence “Larry” Campbell — or Carroll, as several newspapers called him — leaned too far over the edge of a North River pier and slipped into the churning Hudson.
Witnesses shouted, “A boy’s drownded!” while the current pulled Larry farther from shore.
Enter “Red” — A Freckled, Barefoot Rescue
A small, wiry boy with a ragged cap and sunburned face arrived on the run.
He asked only one question:
“Where is he?”
Then, according to The Evening World, he “commenced peelin’ off me clothes,” plunged in, and swam half a block through the rough water until he reached Larry, who was struggling to stay afloat.
He dragged the boy back toward the pier, hauled him through the water, and helped get him “laid out on the bank.” He refused to leave the injured child, insisting on riding with Larry in the ambulance and staying beside him for hours at the hospital.
When reporters arrived to praise him, the boy bristled:
“Hero nuthin’!”
he snapped.
“Ain’t I been swimmin’ for eight years?”
His name, he finally admitted, was Willie Romaine, though most people knew him by his shock of red hair.
A Boy Already Seasoned in Bravery
The reporter discovered that Larry wasn’t the first child Willie had saved — not even close.
Willie, then just thirteen, casually recalled:
A rescue “the previous summer” of a boy a year or two older than him.
Another rescue of a fourteen-year-old.
Despite his heroics, Willie’s teachers described him in classic boyhood terms:
good grades, but “very bad” in deportment.
A photograph was taken of him at Bowe Art Studio to illustrate the article — a portrait that captured a boy who was brave, spirited, and entirely unimpressed by praise.
Recognition at Last
On November 26, 1901, Willie “Red” Romaine received a gold medal from the United States Volunteer Life Saving Corps. He lived with his father, Gustavus Romaine, a painter, on West 126th Street. After school, Willie delivered newspapers for the Evening World, which described him as “just as good at hustling papers as he is at saving lives.”
He didn’t see himself as special. But New York newspapers did — and so did Larry.
A Debt Repaid
The following summer, on August 8, 1902, the story took a remarkable turn.
Willie, now fourteen, dove into the Hudson at 126th Street — but the water was shallow. He struck bottom hard, dislocating his left arm. Struggling in pain, he couldn’t swim to safety.
And it was Larry Carroll, thirteen, who dove in, reached him, and pulled Willie to shore.
A perfect reversal.
A perfect circle.
And a rare moment when newspaper readers saw boyhood courage reflected back and forth between two young friends.
Why It Matters
Stories like Willie Romaine’s remind us that heroism is often quiet, ordinary, and performed without expectation of reward. These boys lived hard-working lives along the West Side piers — delivering papers, dodging streetcars, and learning to swim in the river because the river was simply there.
Yet in their small corner of New York, they saved each other.
They grew into a kind of mutual guardianship forged before they were even old enough to vote.
History tends to spotlight the great and powerful. But here, in the lives of Willie and Larry, we see something just as meaningful:
the courage of children, the generosity of friendship, and the everyday heroism that built this country from the ground up.
Sources for the Story
The Evening World (New York, NY), June 13, 1901.
Times Union (Brooklyn, NY), June 13, 1901.
The Evening World (New York, NY), Nov. 26, 1901.
Times Union (Brooklyn, NY), Aug. 9, 1902.
All citations reference newspapers in the public domain.