New Jersey Shark Attacks of 1916
The warm sun beat down on the sandy Jersey coast as people sat and watched the waves roll in. Women and children waded in the gentle surf, allowing the water and foam to crash against them; men swam further out, attempting to pass the breakers into the open ocean. One man was much further on than the others and people along the shore watched in amazement as he began to hurriedly swim back. Out of nowhere a column of water shot up and a red stain appeared where the man once was.
Medieval painting of a shark attacking a boat. Courtesy of Hakai Magazine.
America’s Perception of Sharks
Since ancient times the shark has been seen as a devil fish, a creature that swallows unsuspecting swimmers and attacks boats without provocation. Sharks remained terrifying beasts in fiction but their image in the real world began to slowly change over time. When the science driven Victorian Era came along it put many tales about the sea to rest. Many became skeptical and no longer accepted the tales of dangerous sea creatures such as colossal squids that attacked ships or mermaids that lured young sailors to their death. As such many also began to discount the belief in man-eating sharks.
Hermann Oelrichs was a well known American millionaire shipping mogul who was seen as one of the greatest sportsmen in the country. Oelrichs particularly enjoyed endurance swimming and was regarded as one of the best in the entire world, swimming so much in fact that New York fishermen often looked for him when they were coming into shore. He also liked to play tricks on the captains of his ships. When a ship was expected to reach port soon Oelrichs would swim to it a few miles out and act as if he was a distressed swimmer. When the captain and crew attempted to haul him on board he would start swimming just fine and act like he was offended that they thought he could not make it back under his own power. With all this open ocean swimming it comes as no surprise that he had experience with sharks. These experiences led him to believe they were harmless scavengers that should not be feared, even going so far as to call them cowards. He had also conversed with many captains of his ships and none of them could ever think of a time when a person was actively attacked by a shark. Another stunt he liked to pull towards the beginning of every summer was to swim five miles off the New Jersey coast and back, newspapers such as the New York Herald would run headlines such as, Oelrichs Scares Away the Sharks.
Hermann Oelrichs. Courtesy of Find A Grave
In 1891 he decided to offer $500 for any proof of a shark attacking a living man, woman or child in temperate waters. Temperate waters being defined as those north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. This set off a discussion about sharks across the nation as newspapers began widely reporting on the reward. Many people wrote to Oelrichs from across the globe about times they had witnessed attacks, but none had any credible evidence and nearly all, save a couple, happened outside of temperate waters.
Oelrichs did not just look for evidence to prove his theory, he actively tested it himself. At a party at his seaside home he once jumped into the water with a shark to settle a $250 bet. It sent many of his guests into a panic, some covering their eyes while others called for help, however the great fish quickly swam away and Oelrichs pridefully collected on the bet. He performed a similar stunt in July of 1891 when he was sailing with several other business moguls aboard his yacht, the Hildegard. In the late evening they spotted several sharks and, after donning his swimsuit, Oelrichs jumped in to confront them. He thrashed about quickly and the sharks almost immediately scattered. The next morning newspapers across the country ran the story and scientists at the Smithsonian even used it as evidence for the shark's docile nature. Oelrichs did believe that there were probably some dangerous sharks out there, but he surmised that only harmless sharks lived close to shore and if a “man-eater” ever did come close it would be a juvenile and still harmless.
Possibly Oelrichs’s yacht. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Oelrichs died in 1906 but his views on sharks lived on. In 1915, with no evidence of sharks attacking humans in temperate waters coming forward, the Times published an article called Let Us Do Justice to Sharks. This article told how bathers should not be scared of the great fish and how they had been unjustly given the title of man-eater.
Doctor Frederic Lucas. Public Domain.
Scientists
Scientists also shared the sentiment that most sharks were harmless, but there were really only three in the entire country that could comment intelligently on the subject. Zoologist Frederic Lucas was the most experienced as he had spent 40 years researching in an attempt to find a credible case of a shark attack. Ornithologist Robert Murphy knew general information about the different species of sharks and often assisted Lucas and Nichols. Ichthyologist John Nichols was considered the lone shark expert, he had spent much time cataloging and dissecting different species of sharks and was the best at identifying them. Drs. Nichols and Lucas both worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The lack of evidence of shark attacks caused the museum to declare that sharks, with the exception of the great whites and tiger sharks, were harmless. They even cited Oelrichs’s swims as evidence for their conclusion.
Dr. John Nichols. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute.
Scientists of this time did not know much about shark behavior. Examining dead specimens in a laboratory was easy but there was no way for them to observe the fish in its natural habitat. What they did know came from anecdotal evidence and from what they could infer by looking at the shark's physiology. With scientists, government officials, and newspapers claiming sharks to be harmless, it is not difficult to see why the fear of them was low.
Robert Murphy. Courtesy of Stony Brook University Libraries.
The First Attack
The summer of 1916 was one of the hottest on record and residents from all over New Jersey and New York headed for the Jersey shore to cool off. Many of the wealthy planned to stay for the duration of the summer, one of them being Charles Vansant. Charles came from a well to do Philadelphia family. His father was a doctor and made sure that his son had the best in life, giving him all the advantages he needed to carry on the family legacy. Charles had just graduated college when he went to Beach Haven, New Jersey for what he thought would be his last family vacation before settling down and starting his own.
Charles Vansant. Courtesy of Find A Grave.
On July 1, 1916 the Vansants checked into the Engleside hotel and Charles was eager to take his first dip of the season. It was customary for men of this era to take a swim shortly after they first arrived and always before dinner in order to display their bravado and masculinity. As his family put away their luggage, Charles quickly put on his black bathing suit and rushed for the beach. When he arrived he befriended a red Chesapeake Bay retriever who he played with for several minutes before it followed him into the surf. Vansant rocketed past the breakers and away from the groups of people out into the open ocean. Those on the boardwalk cheered as the young man swam further out at an unmatched pace. Unknown to Vansant, he had now put himself into a situation; he was alone and away from the group. It was not long after they had passed the breakers that the retriever decided to head back towards shore. Vansant turned around and attempted to coax the dog back in but it had already reached the beach and was not keen on returning to the water. Vansant floated there for a few moments before deciding he had gone far enough himself and began swimming back to shore. A person watching from the beach suddenly noticed a dark fin rise behind him. At first people mistook it for a porpoise, a common sight in these waters, but they soon realized that the lone fin meant something much more sinister.
Courtesy of Shutterstock.
One man exclaimed “Watch out!” to Charles, followed by a chorus of others echoing similar warnings. Unfortunately Charles could not hear them as his head bobbed in and out of the water with each stroke. He was in only three and a half feet of water when the shark’s gleaming white teeth raised out of the surf and clamped down on Charles’s legs with more than six tons of pressure! Onlookers were stunned as Charles lay yelling for help in the crimson red water, struggling to free his leg from the massive blue beast. His efforts were in vain as it caused the shark to clamp down even hard and sever his femoral artery. Bright red blood began spurting out of his leg and he succumbed to shock.
Bystanders, including Charles’s family, were dumbstruck and unsure of what to do. Luckily his sister Louisa was one of the few to remain lucid and rushed to help her brother, breaking the concentration of several men who now dashed into the water to save him. The commotion of Vansant’s rescuers caused the shark to back off, pieces of his leg hung from its mouth. For some reason it did not swim off or continue to attack but merely sat a few meters away and watched the young man struggle to not drown in his own blood. Experts now believe it was waiting for Charles to bleed out, making him easier to consume.
Alexander Ott in 1924. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The first person to reach Vansant was Alexander Ott, an incredible swimmer destined to be a champion. Ott grabbed Charles under his arms and began to swim towards shore, but a few seconds later he felt a tug in the other direction. Ott turned around in horror as he saw that the shark was now latched onto Vansant’s thigh. Ott later described it as being ten feet long, 500 pounds, and “incredibly strong.” There was no way he could win this life or death game of tug-o-war by himself and he called for help. A human chain was formed and began tugging at Vansant’s body, Charles himself was miraculously still conscious and continued trying to fight the shark off with his bare hands. The chain succeeded in pulling him onto the shore, but the killing machine followed. Charles was pulled farther up the beach where the shark let go after it bottomed out on the sand. People looked on in shock and horror, both at the fact that a shark came so close to shore and because of Charles’s ghastly wounds. Louisa, who had kept her composure through the whole ordeal, nearly fainted at the sight of her brother's left leg that was just barely hanging on. Dr. Eugene Vansant, Charles’s father, rushed to help his son. The young man’s face was already turning a pale white and he was drifting into unconsciousness as his dark red blood began to pool on the sand. Dr. Vansant was not entirely sure what to do, he had never experienced a wound like this and had to take a moment to reflect on his medical training. He soon realized he could perform no surgery without first stopping the steady stream of blood. The heroic swimmer, Ott, tore off strips from a woman’s dress that the doctor used to make a tourniquet, but it did little to stem the flow. Dr. Joseph Neff now joined in and the two quickly brainstormed ideas, but soon came to the conclusion that this was far outside of either of their medical expertise. Realizing that Charles could not survive the 30 mile car trip to the nearest hospital they decided to try and treat him in the hotel.
Dr. Eugene Vansant. Courtesy of Find A Grave.
Charles was carried to the Engleside where the hotel manager's wooden door was removed from its hinges and laid across his desk to be used as an operating table. Dr. Neff cleaned and bandaged the open wounds but the heavy bleeding continued. Neither doctor knew what to do and at 6:45 P.M. Dr. Vansant watched helplessly as his only son died. He was only 25 years old. Charles’s death certificate stated that he died of “shock and hemorrhage from the femoral artery, left side,” and that the contributing cause was “bitten by a shark while bathing.” It was the first time in U.S. history that a shark bite was listed as the official cause of death. By today’s standards his wounds were actually minor for a shark attack, and he would have been extremely likely to survive if the proper aid had been administered immediately after it occurred.
Postcard showing the Engleside hotel. Public Domain.
A Lukewarm Reaction
After Charles’s death, reporters went about the hotel attempting to obtain the whole story. They questioned anyone who claimed to have seen the attack, and one man, W. K. Barklie, told any reporter that listened, “Mr. Vansant’s death was the most horrible I ever saw.” They also asked the opinion of fishermen who were thought to know best why it had happened. Of course the shark was mentioned but many suggested it was a tuna or sailfish. The most widely believed story however was that it was a sea turtle, which the fishermen said had the power to snap a man in two. Unsurprisingly, no matter who the attacker was it still worried many of those staying at the hotel, but the owner, Robert Engle, ensured them that the waters were safe and that a net would be erected around the beach that would be strong enough to “stop German U-boats.” The attack was not broadcast outside of the area, likely to protect the tourist trade, and the newspapers waited a couple days before picking up the story. For the time being the only underwater threat they reported on was the prowling German submarines that terrified many.
World War One German U-boat with crew. Courtesy of Cool Kid Facts.
The next day, July 2, roughly 50,000 people flocked to the beaches and 11 people had to be rescued from drowning. During this time deaths at the beach were common and it took something spectacular to really be reported on. Even if something noteworthy did happen the tourist trade needed to be protected, so writers were hesitant to include anything too worrying. The story of Charles’s death did not come out until two days after on July 3, and it was not big news. Most newspapers put the story several pages back and one of the most widely read, the Times, had it on their last page. Many chose titles such as Man Dies After Fish Attack and only included four or five short paragraphs that made no mention of a shark. Due to this lack of reporting many out of towners had not heard of Vansant’s death, but they could tell something was amiss. The pools were more crowded than usual, surfmen (lifeguards) spent more time in their rescue boats patrolling just outside the safety ropes, and they were strictly enforcing the rules by not allowing anyone to go beyond them.
New Jersey beach scene in 1904, imagine even more people in 1916. Courtesy of u/diskomo on Reddit.
It appeared that word of the shark attack had reached the surrounding areas because on July 4 there was a scare early in the day near Spring Lake. Several fins were seen protruding out of the water not far from shore and several people claimed they were man-eating sharks. However fishermen and longtime residents assured them that they were merely dolphins and that sharks never attacked people on the Jersey Coast. Many of the residents even claimed that the newspapers fabricated the attack story and that Vansant merely drowned.
Second Attack
On July 6, two men from Spring Lake decided to perform a long distance swim, shark be damned. Robert W. Dowling, a 19 year old from a wealthy family, was going to swim four miles out into the Atlantic and back. Leonard Hill, a druggist from New York City, would swim out a quarter of a mile and then continue parallel to the beach for five miles in the direction of Beach Haven. Both men accomplished their swims unscathed but onlookers told them they had come incredibly close to the shark. Both men acted as if it did not bother them but both personally swore off swimming in New Jersey waters.
Charles Bruder was a muscular, blonde hair, blue eyed, 28 year old former Swiss soldier who came to America to make money and support his mother back home. He was incredibly well organized which helped him excel at his job as the bellhop captain of the Essex and Sussex hotel. He was said to run the work staff like a well oiled machine and that no greater service could be had in any hotel on the East Coast. Charles was also an incredibly accomplished swimmer and very prideful of that fact. Like many of the time his passion was distance swimming and he had swam in waters all over the U.S. Much like Oelrichs, he believed sharks to be cowards and drawing on his own personal experience he believed the man who had died from one a few days prior was just a freak accident.
Old postcard showing the Essex & Sussex hotel. Courtesy of the Monmouth County Historical Association.
Charles believed himself to be the strongest swimmer on the Jersey Coast and he was to not let himself go unnoticed after catching word of the distance swimmers earlier that day. In the lull of the afternoon, when most guests had returned from the beach and were napping or preparing for evening dinner, around 1:45 P.M., he and several other bellhops headed for the beach. Before entering the water Bruder stopped to talk to Captain George White and Christopher Anderson at the life saving station about the previous shark attack. The New York Herald later reported that Bruder told them that “he was not afraid of sharks” and “that off Catalina Island, California, he had seen many and they always fled from bathers.” Bruder did not know about the differences between species of sharks. As a result he could not have known that the ones he saw in California were leopard sharks which are comparatively small and quite skittish compared to the great white and other carcharodons.
Leopard shark. Courtesy of Wild Republic.
After the short chat Bruder plunged into the water at 2:15 p.m., followed by his fellow bellhops. He only had 15 minutes to swim so he could not match what the distance of the previous two men, but he still planned to make a spectacle of going out as far as he could in that short time. A couple moments later Bruder dipped his head under the safety ropes and swam farther out to sea. Generally a swimmer who went past the ropes would be recalled by the surfmen, but White and Anderson did not so much as raise an eyebrow as they knew how strong of a swimmer Bruder was. He continued darting further out and in just a few short moments was 1,000 feet from shore, people watched with amazement as he continued, to about 1,200 feet out. From shore he was just a visible dot bobbing up and down in the surf..
By now the shark had sensed Bruder’s motion in the water, a lone mammal now in the big fishes element, and decided to attack. From the shore people watched as a massive column of water shot up where Bruder had once been. In a violent attack the shark had rushed up from the bottom and grabbed Charles by the legs, pulling him under! A moment later a woman yelled out “The man in the red canoe is upset!” White and Anderson quickly launched the rescue boat and frantically rowed towards Bruder. They found that the “red canoe” was actually blood and watched helplessly as the shark pulled the young man in a circular motion through the water. It let go as Bruder’s rescuers approached but was back within seconds. The Philadelphia Inquirer would later describe part of the assault, “Swimming away and darting forward like an aeroplane attacking a Zeppelin, the shark made another lunge, cutting a deep gash in Bruder’s abdomen.” As the rowboat broke into the pool of blood Bruder was pulled completely under, but miraculously was able to fight his way back to the surface a moment later to gasp out, “A shark bit me.” One of the men in the boat lowered an oar to Bruder who was surprisingly still strong enough to grab it and pull himself up onto the gunwales. He then collapsed and began sliding back into the ocean. White and Anderson quickly grabbed a hold of his swimsuit and lifted him aboard. The two said they were surprised how easy it was to lift the tall muscular man but horrifically found out why when they looked down, both of Bruder’s legs were gone!
All three were now covered in Bruder’s spurting blood. One of the rescuers began rowing as hard as he could for shore while the other ripped up his shirt to make tourniquets. Blood poured out of the wounds, covering the bottom of the boat but amazingly Bruder was still conscious. He began relaying the story of what had transpired to the other two. The New York Herald later reported what Bruder had said, “He was a big gray fellow, and as rough as sandpaper. I didn’t see him until after he struck me the first time. He cut me here in the side, and his belly was so rough it bruised my face and arms. That was when I yelled the first time. I thought he had gone on, but he only turned and shot back at me [and] . . . snipped my leg off . . . He yanked me clear under before he let go . . . he came back at me again . . . and he shook me like a terrier shakes a rat. But he let go while I was calling, then suddenly . . . took off the other leg. He’s a big fellow and awful hungry.” This story was likely embellished by the reporter but it is consistent with the wounds that Bruder received.
After White and Anderson reached the shore they attempted to administer first aid there on the beach. Men, women, and children frantically left the ocean and ran back to the hotel. As word of the shark attack reached the Essex & Sussex the assistant hotel manager, F. T. Keating, went to hotel manager, David B. Plumer, and explained what happened. Plumer told Keating to assemble every doctor within the hotel and within the Spring Lake area; he then called the central telephone operator and ordered her to have every other central operator spread the message of sharks in the water. It was the first coastwide shark alarm in U.S. history. Within a half hour thousands of people abandoned the ocean and shoreline all across New Jersey, the majority being cleared within just 12 minutes. While people evacuated, Drs. William W. Trout and A. Cornell rushed to assist Bruder. They were the first medical professionals to arrive and were met with a grisly scene. Bruder’s bathing suit was covered with drying and clotted blood and the sand below him was stained a crimson red. His left leg was bitten off above the knee, his right just below, and he had a huge gash in his torso that zigzagged in the shape of the shark's teeth. Several of his arteries had been sliced through. There was nothing the two physicians could do for him as he was already dead. Bruder’s injuries were so severe that even if he had 21st century medical attention he still would not survive.
Map showing Beach Haven and Spring Lake. Courtesy of the New York Times.
The doctors now had to turn their attention to the crowd as several women had gone into shock at the sight of Bruder’s body. It was not long after they started comforting these individuals that others began asking questions, ones that neither Cornell or Trout had an answer for. To their relief Dr. William G. Schauffler came to assist them. Schauffler was only 25 years old but was the highest ranking medical doctor in all of New Jersey and was admired by all. Shauffler helped to disperse much of the crowd and roughly 15 minutes after Bruder was brought to shore he knelt down and examined it. Seeing the bite marks and the large chunks of flesh removed he had to admit that a shark was the cause of the injuries. He would go on to file the first medical report of a shark attack victim in U.S. history, describing the wounds in more detail, “The left foot was missing as well as the lower end of the tibia and fibula. The leg bone was denuded of flesh from a point halfway below the knee. There was a deep gash above the left knee, which penetrated to the bone. On the right side of the abdomen low down a piece of flesh as big as a man’s fist was missing. There is not the slightest doubt that a man-eating shark inflicted the injuries.” As Schauffler started to leave the body he already began planning his next move. He wanted patrol boats, armed men that would catch and kill this man-eater.
That evening people gossiped about the attack and tried to figure out why and how it happened. Old time fishermen continued to implicate other aquatic creatures such as the swordfish, sea turtles, or even giant mackerel. The last one is somewhat ironic as great white sharks are considered a class of mackerel sharks. With horror they remembered how in 1913 a shark had been caught and found to have an unidentified woman’s foot in its stomach, though it was generally believed that it had been scavenged from a drowning victim. The newspapers quickly picked up the story and reporters were all over the Essex & Sussex hotel willing to take down any story that was given. To no one's surprise this led to much misinformation and stories would differ wildly depending on what account was read.
By this point the attacks were starting to gain the attention of scientists. John Nichols came to examine Bruder’s body. Though he was well versed in the different species of sharks, his knowledge on bite patterns and radiuses was lacking. Because of this he declared Bruder was actually attacked by a killer whale, an orca. He said the wounds were too jagged to be that of a shark and matched that of the whale. Orcas had been seen attacking giant blue whales so it was not far-fetched to believe that one would attack a human. The New York Times reported “It is not settled that the killer whale attacks humans, but Mr. Nichols thought there was as much reason to suppose it was a killer whale as to suppose it was a shark.”
Newspaper after the second attack. Public Domain.
A Jaring Interlude
On July 7 the waters around Spring Lake were filled with armed men patrolling along the coast in motorboats, chumming the water with lambs blood while chunks of the animal hung off the side. Poised with rifles and harpoons they scanned the water and tried to coax the shark out. Dr. Schauffler hoped these patrols would at least give swimmers peace of mind, even if they did not kill the shark. Some of the younger and more adventurous beachgoers did go into the water, but by midday the beaches were empty for the first summer in years.
In the Essex & Sussex arrangements were being made for Bruder’s funeral. A collection was taken up to send to his widowed mother in Switzerland. They wanted to send his body back but the threat of German submarines made them decide against it. The hotel paid all the expenses of the funeral which was to be held the next day, likely rushing the service in order to put the tragedy behind them and make people forget about the shark.
Surfmen of the 1900s.
Hotels began putting up anti-shark netting and some places along the Jersey shore even began barricading their beaches. Despite these measures guests began checking out of hotels and heading for the mountains and countryside for the rest of their vacation. Newspapers did not help financial matters as they began widely reporting the attacks. The head of The New York Times read Shark Kills Bather Off New Jersey Beach, with this sentiment echoed by every other newspaper. Even stories about the devastating campaign on the Somme in Europe and the German U-boats took a back seat to the shark.
In the late afternoon gunshots could be heard coming from the ocean. One of the patrols spotted a large fin sticking out of the water close to shore and fired upon it, but none were able to hit the fish and it fled. By evening the men’s nerves were on edge and they were shooting at any reflections or shadow in the water. They said the shark was trying to bite oars and ram their boats, though there is no evidence of this and the men were likely letting their nerves get the best of them.
Charles Bruder’s gravestone. Courtesy of Dana Ehret on Twitter.
On July 8 Charles Bruder’s funeral was held at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church, at the same time men continued to search for his killer. Near Asbury Park, surfman Captain Ben Everingham was patrolling just outside of the safety ropes in a small rowboat. It was suggested that he take a rifle and an axe with him, but he was skeptical that a shark was the one doing the attacks so he brought neither. He likely regretted this decision because just after 11 A.M. he saw it. Everingham watched in awe as a large dark fin sliced through the water coming directly towards him. He stood up in the boat and smacked the great fish with one of his oars. It quickly turned around to head back out to sea, as it did he hit it once again to make sure it received the message. Beachgoers were confused seeing him standing up with an oar raised but soon had their questions answered as he frantically rowed to shore and had the other surfmen evacuate everyone out of the water. The beach at Asbury Park was to be closed until steel netting could be erected.
Mayor Hetrick returned from a fishing trip that afternoon and when he heard about the incident decided he would rig his boat for shark fishing. Harold Phillips, a member of the Asbury Park Fishing Club, agreed to help by dropping horse and cow carcasses a quarter mile off shore where the sharks would be drawn to. Then men from the Asbury Park Gun Club would have fine sport shooting at them. Of course some were sensibly concerned that the plan would just draw more sharks to the area. This idea exemplifies a real shift in people's beliefs, instead of wanting to catch or kill the shark doing the killing all sharks were starting to be demonized.
Newspaper headlines from the time. Courtesy of Click Americana.
That same day in New York Bay boys and girls were bathing near the Robbins Reef Yacht Club in Bayonne, New Jersey, when they saw a large shark, described as being eight feet long, approaching them. Someone yelled out “It’s a shark!” and everyone began dashing out of the water. Nearby police lieutenant Dennis Colohan was working with Amos Harker, superintendent of the city water department, and two other officers to put an engine in Harker’s motorboat. They all heard the screams and looked over to see the shark lift its head out of the water not far from where the children had just been swimming. Lieutenant Colohan luckily had his revolver and ran to the end of the float, followed by the other three. The shark was still headed towards shore and the lieutenant waited for it to come within 20 feet of him before firing, he was alarmed when he noticed that the fin stuck three feet out of the water. He hit the shark a few times in the head, but it kept coming. He continued to shoot until his revolver ran dry and later recounted that the shark “seemed stunned for a moment, and then, lashing its tail, it turned quickly about, headed toward Robbins Reef Lighthouse and disappeared.” Colohan was hailed a hero. The next day the newspaper The World published a story about both men’s encounters titled Two More Sharks Sighted and Sent to Sea A-grieving.
On July 9 protective steel nets had been put up at many beaches and those that did not have them were awarding contracts to have them constructed. A feeling of normalcy was beginning to return. The press believed that the attacks were freak accidents and that by the next week people would be back to bathing in regular numbers. This opinion was bolstered by the director of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Hugh Smith, who said that bathers should “not be unduly alarmed or deterred from going in bathing.” He backed up this claim by saying “sharks are not vicious.” Plus many were still convinced it wasn’t a shark but a swordfish or giant mackerel that had likely left the area by now. The district superintendent of the U.S. Coast Guard helped dampen the fears of those that did believe it was a shark by saying that sharks were “timid as rabbits.”
Matawan Creek Attacks
Matawan Creek is a muddy coastal stream that snakes around 16 miles inland before reaching the small town of Matawan. Matawan can be described as one of those places where everybody knows everybody. It was industrialized and had several factories but most workers had to hold two jobs, not for financial reasons but because there were not enough people to fill all the needed positions in town. It was a friendly place and neighbors were always there to help one another.
Matawan Creek. Courtesy of Atlas Obscura.
On the afternoon of July 11 a boy named Renasselaer “Renny” Cartan Jr., fourteen years old, dark hair, and muscular, left his job at the Carran Lumber and Coal Company to go swimming. It was customary for businesses to allow boys to take a few minutes off in the heat of the day to go swim in the creek. He found his cousin, A. J. Cartan, at the local department store and they met up with a group of other boys before heading to Matawan Creek. Renny was one of the first to jump in and he swam to the far side of the creek. As he watched the other boys jump off the dock Renny felt something large push by him, scraping his chest. In a moment he felt the water turn warm with his blood and the pain like a hundred little paper cuts all across his chest. He began wailing and the other boys quickly came to his aid. They tried to reassure him that he had just bumped into a rock or tree limb but he was incorrigible, and had to leave to have his bleeding chest bandaged up. Renny warned the others that he saw a dark mass in the water going up the creek right after he was bumped, but they did not listen and continued to swim as he walked off. He was not bit but the skin of sharks is like sandpaper and is so rough it can tear human skin. In the past carpenters used shark skin to sand down the hardest of woods, and it is still used for that purpose by some pacific island tribes today.
Microscopic view of shark skin. Courtesy of WQAD.
On the same day, sailors on the USS Texas made headlines after killing a fifteen-foot hammerhead while traveling to Rhode Island. Scientists were quickly questioned as to whether they thought the shark could be the killer. They said they did not believe it was because eyewitnesses of the attacks would have easily noticed its odd shaped head.
On July 12 retired sea captain Thomas V. Cottrell, 58, was enjoying his morning stroll and watching the waters of the creek with intensity. Cottrell was loved by many in the town, a jokester who was easy to get along with and always had a tall tale to share. He had heard about how Renny’s chest was scratched by a large fish the day before and was curious as to what it could have been. He took the stories about sharks seriously, and though he doubted a shark would be found in Matawan he did not entirely dismiss the idea. While crossing the town's new drawbridge he saw a large dark shape passing underneath. He watched in shock as he watched the estimated nine to ten feet long shark make its way up the creek closer to the town. Cottrell soon gained his composure and stopped to ask the workmen at the bridge if they had seen the shark too, when the dumbfounded men said they had Cottrell took off to warn the town. First he went to John Musloff’s barbershop, who doubled as the town constable, and told him what he had seen. The barber took a second to think before he burst out laughing, followed by others in the shop. They thought he was crazy for thinking a shark could come so far from the ocean and one man even said “You have a better chance seeing an elephant cooling off down there than a shark.” Frustrated, Cottrell stormed out of the shop and ran up and down Main Street attempting to warn others. Unfortunately everyone had the same reaction as the men in the shop and many continued on for their afternoon swim. Realizing he was not going to be believed, Cottrell headed down to the dock and jumped in his motorboat, the Skud, and began patrolling the creek for any sign of the shark, warning swimmers as he went.
Trolley bridge over Matawan Creek. Courtesy of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Lester Stilwell worked with his father and 16 year old brother at the town basket factory. In the late afternoon Lester, his brother, Charlie Van Brunt, Johnson Cartan, Frank Clowes, Albert O’Hara, and Anthony Bublin left to go for a swim. The boys had missed Cottrells warning as he had gone up the creek just before the boys reached the water, narrowly missing them. When they arrived at the old Wyckoff Dock they began jumping from wooden pillar to pillar before plunging into the creek. While swimming they saw what they thought was an “old black weather-beaten board or a weathered log,” floating near them. Lester swam near the “log” and yelled back at the other boys “Watch me float,” before rolling onto his back. Not but a second later he was attacked! They helplessly watched as their friend was torn to shreds, “being shaken, like a cat shakes a mouse.” As the shark whipped around its tail hit Albert and knocked him against the supports of the dock. Charlie would later describe the shark as “the biggest, blackest fish he had ever seen.” Albert looked back at the widening pool of blood where Lester had been and exclaimed “Oh, Lester’s gone!” A moment later the boy reappeared, yelling and waving his arms but not even a second later he was gone again, this time for good. The boys hurried out of the creek and while still naked and covered in mud ran up Main Street screaming “Shark! A shark got Lester!” Constable Mulsoff was alarmed at the boy's cries and thought it odd that Lester was attacked just after Cottrell’s warnings, but still believed the boy had probably just drowned. He gathered a group of men consisting much of the different boy’s fathers including Lesters and headed to rescue, or more likely recover, him. Some of the boys were frustrated that the adults did not believe them so they went to the town tailor, Stanley Fisher. The New York Herald reported that the residents of the town “thought the boys were playing a prank until finally they appealed to Stanley Fisher. They knew he was a powerful swimmer . . . and a friend of all the boys in town.”
Lester Stilwell. Courtesy of the Global Shark Attack File.
Fisher promptly closed the shop for the rest of the day, rushed to put on his bathing suite and followed the boys. Upon leaving the store Fisher ran into his friend George Burlew. Burlew was also a strong swimmer with an affinity for fishing and the idea, no matter how unlikely, of seeing a shark in the creek excited him. Fisher easily convinced him to go put on his bathing suit and join in the search for Lester. When Fisher arrived at the scene he found a crowd of townspeople already searching for Lester, men in rowboats going up and down the creek poling the impenetrable murky waters for the boy's body. Fisher and Burlew hopped in one of the boats and began searching for the boy too. Others began to string chicken wire across a low spot in the creek to prevent the body from floating down stream. After an hour of searching Fisher and Burlew jumped in and began to search the deeper parts where the poles couldn’t reach. Arthur Smith, the town carpenter, also dove in search of Lester's body and received a rough scrape across his chest that drew blood. After a half hour of dives the men were exhausted and unable to reach the bottom of the deepest parts due to the recent rains and high tide that swelled the creek. They began to swim to the creek bank, deciding there was nothing more they could feasibly do except wait for low tide. As they did Fisher saw Lester’s distraught mother standing on the creek bank and decided to make another dive. He came back up empty handed and everyone began telling him to call off the search, but what they did not know was that Fisher had finally spotted Lester’s body. Fisher would later say that it looked like a log was rolling on top of it. Once more he dived and upon breaking the surface yelled out “I’ve got it!” People cheered from the bank as two men rowed out to help Fisher pull up the body. Burlew also swam back towards his friend but abruptly stopped as he saw the water around Fisher start to churn and thrash. Fisher now exclaimed “He’s got me!” and everyone watched as he began to fight off the vicious fish with one arm, still grasping Lester with the other.
Stanley Fisher. Courtesy of Find A Grave.
Burlew later described Fisher’s fight with the shark, “Stanley was a big man, and he fought back at the shark, striking it with his fists. He was fighting desperately to break away, striking and kicking at it with all his might. Three or four times during the struggle the shark pulled him under, but each time he managed to get back to the surface. He seemed to be holding his own, but at best it was an uneven battle. The shark was at home in the water-- and Stanley wasn’t.” Incredibly Fisher was able to free himself from the shark and began swimming towards the bank, still clutching the boy’s body. Three men in a motorboat tried to pick him up but their engine stalled. Others in rowboats surrounded him trying to cover him from the shark, smacking the water with their hands and oars in an attempt to frighten it. Fisher had nearly reached the shore when he let out a blood curdling scream and threw his arms in the air. Lester’s body sank and Fisher was dragged completely under! He quickly surfaced again, the shark apparently letting go after seeing that he had dropped Lester’s body. The boats raced to lift him out of the water, and he was soon back on dry land. At first Fisher did not seem to notice his injury until he attempted to walk up the bank, feeling his leg fail to hold him up he looked down and exclaimed “Oh, my God” before falling back into the creek. A group of men quickly pulled him out and laid him down, tying a tourniquet above the wound in an attempt to stop the flow. Several women and men with weaker constitutions reportedly fainted at the sight of his gushing blood. They now rushed to find a doctor but the two that lived in town had both left for the day.
For a half hour Fisher lay bleeding and groaning until one of them, Dr. Reynolds, was finally found. Reynolds said he had never seen such a wound before, and described it as someone having been cut up with dull knives. The femoral artery was severed and the doctor worked quickly to seal it up. Miraculously Fisher was still conscious and while the doctor worked he described how he had seen the shark feeding on Lester and when he grabbed the body it attacked him. Dr. Reynolds wrapped up the wound as best he could and ordered the men near him to construct a makeshift stretcher. They worked quickly and soon were carrying Fisher to the train station. The closest hospital was 10 miles away in Long Branch but the doctor did not believe Fisher would survive a bumpy car rider so he decided to go by train. Unfortunately the train would not arrive for two hours, the local engineer, Harry Van Cleaf, attempted to divert it from less important stops so it would arrive sooner. Despite continuing to bleed profusely Fisher was able to retain consciousness for those two agonizing hours and when he was loaded onto the train he was just beginning to drift in and out of consciousness. Upon hearing the conductor say that he would push the engine to top speed Stanley still had the presence of mind to respond “Thank you, sir.” Stanley was brought to the hospital in record time, under a half hour. He was still alive but due to the heavy blood loss he had no pulse upon arrival, and neither saline infusion nor stimulants could rouse him. He lay just barely conscious on the operating table and whispered his final words to Dr. Edwin Field, “Doc, I found the boy in the bottom; I got Lester away from the shark. Anyhow, I did my duty.” He then lapsed into unconsciousness and died five minutes later.
Newspaper of the time saying that Stanley Fisher was attacked by a tiger shark. Courtesy of Click Americana.
About a half an hour after Fisher was attacked three boys, brothers Joseph and Michael Dunn and friend Jerry Hollohan, went swimming a quarter mile down the creek. They had not heard about the attacks and those going up and down the stream to warn others had not reached them yet. Captain Cottrell was not far away when the three dove in. Not long after a man from a nearby dock had received word of the attacks and rushed down to warn the boys, Hollohan and Michael climbed up the docks ladder out of the water. Joseph was not far behind and almost reached bottom rung when he felt something “very rough” brush up against him, cutting his skin. “I was about ten feet from shore and looked down and saw something dark . . . I did not see him the first time he hit me . . . then he turned and came back and got my leg.” The shark was initiating its attack by striking from the back towards the legs, similar to how all the other victims had been dragged under. “Suddenly I felt a tug, like a big pair of scissors pulling at my leg and bringing me under . . . the teeth of the shark evidently clamped down on my leg quickly and I thought it was off. I felt as if my leg had gone. It seemed the fish was [trying] . . . to get my whole leg inside his mouth . . . I thought he would kill me . . . I thought it was going to swallow me.” Jacob Lefferts, a lawyer and developer, was on his motorboat warning people when he saw Dunn being attacked. The man sped to the boy's aid and while still fully clothed jumped in the water. Michael also dove back in and the two now attempted to wrestle Joseph free from the shark. They made it to the dock ladder and watched as the predator clamped down harder on Dunn's left leg. Fortunately the shallow creek made it hard for the big fish to maneuver, and after a few seconds of struggling it gave up. With the help of another man, Robert Thress, they hauled the boy up onto the dock and saw that he had chunks of flesh missing below his left knee. They bandaged the boy up as best they could and Cottrell sped the boy back to the Wyckoff Dock where he knew people were still gathered.
Joseph Dunn. Courtesy of the Global Shark Attack File.
While Cottrell was transporting Dunn the men in Matawan were fed up looking for Lester’s body. They now wanted retribution. Like men on a mission they marched to the local hardware store and left with armfuls of dynamite. The acting mayor of Matawan, A. B. Henderson, announced a one hundred dollar bounty “to the person who killed the shark, if one, or if more for each shark killed.” Men from all over town and from distant farms came to the creek armed with shotguns, rifles, pistols, harpoons and any blunt or sharp object they could find. Constable Mulsoff had a strong steel netting put up downstream at Raritan Bay, the creek was cleared of all boats, and men lined up along the bank with their weapons at the ready. Women and children stood back but watched with great interest as the explosives were prepared. Everytime something moved in the water the men prepared to shoot but Mulsoff always stopped them, preferring to wait for the dynamite to be used first. They hoped the explosives would do two things, stun the shark and bring what was left of Lester’s body to the surface. They also thought it could possibly even kill the shark by bursting its flotation bladder. What they did not know was that sharks do not have flotation bladders like regular fish, they swim and stay afloat by sheer force alone.
Photo showing people gathered around the old docks. Public Domain.
Just before setting off the dynamite a motorboat could be heard coming up the creek, and soon Cottrell was in sight. The men helped Dunn up onto the dock where Dr. Herbert Cooley treated his wounds. He was afraid the boy was already too far gone due to the “venomous” bite of the shark (it was a common belief that sharks were venomous) but cleaned and bandaged his leg anyway. Fortunately the boy's artery was still intact and he was rushed to St. Peter’s Hospital roughly 10 miles away. Dunn was able to avoid amputation and with a few skin grafts his leg was saved. For a while he had to walk with crutches, but as he grew older the wound healed and he was able to walk without so much as a limp.
Not long after the boy was gone then the water was again cleared of all boats and the dynamite set off. A burst of brown water leapt into the air and men began firing into the water. There were times of cease fire when men would take the boats out and dredge the waters with oyster hoops for Lester’s body. This pattern of explosion, shoot, and search went on for much of the night. At least 15 nets were set up downstream in order to catch Lester's body and prevent the shark from escaping. A little after 8 in the evening word reached the Matawan residents that Fisher had died, further spurning their thirst for revenge.
Map showing the location of shark attacks. Courtesy of Kmusser.
As the night went on a storm rolled in powerful enough to knock down trees and blow shingles off roofs, but the men continued their hunt for the dastardly fish. By now the creek was dotted with fish that had died from the explosion which, coupled with the darkness and paranoia, caused false sightings. At one point in the night it was reported that an 11 foot 300 pound shark had been caught up stream with human remains in its stomach, but the report turned out to be not true. During one of the searches another man on a motorboat claimed to see four sharks swimming up the stream, this caused mass hysteria and people now claimed to see sharks up and down the entire creek. Some claimed to see three sharks near the Wyckoff Dock and heavy pig wire was stretched across the creek to trap them. Men frantically fired into the water, hitting nothing.
In the early morning hours, as the excitement wore off and no shark to show for their hard work, the hunters began to retire one by one. Ed Craven was walking home when he saw something floating in the water not far from the dock. He clutched his rifle tightly and rushed towards the water expecting to see a shark, but instead what he saw was the body of a young man. He informed Mulsoff of what he found and the waterlogged body was soon lifted out of the creek, it was Lester Stilwell. Much of its left side had been eaten away, a foot was missing and his stomach looked as if it had been ripped open, but his face was clear enough to identify. When Lester’s parents received him his mother collapsed and began to cry hysterically. His father merely walked to the side of their house and began splitting firewood.
Newspaper telling about finding Lester Stilwell’s body. Courtesy of Rare and Early Newspapers.
Catching the Shark
For the next two days the hunt would go on, and by the third day much of the media had arrived to document the spectacle. With this the hunt became more of a show as extra large charges were set off causing large geysers good for photo reels and men and women posed for staged photo ops. That same day a boat was sent down to check the netting at Raritan Bay and it was discovered a large hole was gnawed into it and the chunks of meat set for bait were gone. Matawan had lost its fight and reporters now had to tell of a man-eating shark on the loose.
Extra large explosion made for the camera. Courtesy of Weird NJ.
The shark hunting craze spread all over New Jersey and up through New York as men baited hooks with bloody meat and attempted to kill as many sharks as possible. Dummy’s filled with explosives were suggested to be used against the fish and letters were even sent to Washington advocating for the U.S. submarine fleet to be used to kill the sharks. Many hotel and shop owners implored the federal and state governments to do something. The Jersey shore economy was starting to experience a crisis as people canceled their reservations, hotel owners lost a quarter million dollars in the first week alone.
President Wilson had a cabinet meeting to address the issue. No one really knew what to do as some still did not think the problem was sharks and even if it was there was not much research to understand how to deter them. New Jersey Congressman Isaac Bacharach introduced a bill to appropriate $5,000 to the federal Bureaus of Fisheries for “the extermination of man-eating sharks now infesting the waters of the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of New Jersey.” This was not seen as the right move but they did eventually agree to have the Coast Guard and the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries team up to “route the sea terrors.” The Coast Guard cutter Mohawk was sent to New York harbor to prepare for a “top secret” shark hunting mission. However it never left the harbor because within days the plan was found to be cost prohibitive. Instead the federal government recommended anti shark netting be erected around beaches and that bathers should remain in shallow water close to shore. Officials were coming up with mandates for shark fencing of beaches. They knew that the strength of the nets would have to be regulated because if a weak net was used and a shark smashed through then people would lose faith in the best form of protection. The netting was to be made of no less than no. 9 gauge steel. The metal posts to hold the netting was to be no less than five inches in diameter and had to be driven down at least eight feet. Heavy chain was recommended to be put on the bottom of the net to keep it from becoming dislodged. Insurance companies began debating who would be at fault for a shark attack and what they were supposed to pay in such an incident.
Newspaper telling about the Coast Guard being called in to get sharks. Courtesy of Weird NJ.
Six days after the creek attacks Captain Cottrell and his son-in-law Richard Lee were returning from a fishing trip along the Sandy Hook when around 3 P.M. he spotted a shark thrashing about around the entrance of Matawan Creek. He threw a gillnet over the fish and pulled it to the front of the boat where he hit it in the head multiple times with a blunt piece of iron. The shark weighed in at 230 pounds and measured 7 feet long, at the time it was reported to be a sandbar shark but we now know from its description that it was either a bull shark or a dusky shark. Cottrell’s shark was displayed for several days at the trolley bridge, where he first spotted it, and people could see it for a dime. No human remains were found in the shark's stomach but since it was the only shark killed close to the creek Cottrell collected the bounty.
Over the years a different story has come to light about Cottrells shark. For starters it was not caught in the creek or really even close to the mouth of it but a mile and a half away in Raritan Bay. Even more interesting is that Cottrell may not have caught the shark at all. Bill Burlew, the cousin of Fisher’s friend George Burlew, saw John Cottrell, Captain Cottrell’s nephew, purchase a large shark from Cook’s Fishery in Monmouth not long before Cottrell claimed to have killed the one at the opening of Matawan Creek. From other eyewitness descriptions it seems that the shark John purchased and the one Captain Cottrell killed were identical. Why he did this will likely never be known.
Posed photograph showing people searching for the shark in Matawan. Public Domain.
Michael Schleisser was a big game hunter, animal tamer for Barnum & Bailey, and a world renowned taxidermist. In the early morning of July 14 Schleisser and his friend John Murphy decided to go on a day-long fishing trip. They set out from South Amboy and headed for Raritan Bay in a small 8 foot long motorboat. As they searched for a good fishing spot they dropped a dragnet to catch some panfish for breakfast. As they cruised along they suddenly felt a tug towards the back of their boat followed by the engine stalling. Both men looked back to see a shark caught in the dragnet and attempting to free itself. The front of the boat began to lift into the air as the boat was pulled back. Murphy ran to the front of the boat to try and act as a counterbalance while Schleisser attempted to cut the net and release the shark. As he got closer the shark turned around and jumped in the boat! It began snapping at Schleisser and, thinking quickly, he grabbed a broken boat oar and began smacking the vicious fish on the head. The shark kept thrashing and nearly sunk the boat, but Schleisser landed blow after blow on its head, nose, and gills. Eventually the shark went limp. The fight was over, Schleisser had killed it.
Schleisser and Murphy flagged down a larger boat who agreed to transport the shark back to the dock for them. The shark was laid across the wood planks and a crowd soon formed. Schleisser cut open the stomach and there were remains of what looked to be human flesh inside its stomach, along with a couple bones. Two physicians who were walking by on their way to work identified one of the bones as the shinbone of a young boy and the other as part of a human rib. With this revelation Schleisser quickly packed the shark in ice and drove it to his New York apartment where he would work quickly to preserve it.
The newspapers had already keyed in on Schleisser’s “man-eater” and Dr. Murphy had one of the papers sent to Dr. Lucas and Nichols. The two eagerly read the news story, Nichols thought this could be the shark but Lucas was still skeptical. They would not have to wait long to examine the remains themselves however as just after the newspaper had arrived a deliveryman burst through the door with a package from Schleisser. Within the package were the bones found in the shark's stomach and a message from Schleisser describing the shark as, “dark-dull blue, with a white belly, and the mouth, when open, can fit a man’s head inside. It has four rows of teeth. It is 7 ½ feet in length and weighed 350 pounds.” Lucas examined the bones and disagreed with the physicians findings. He did not believe that one of the bones was a shin bone, but was a lower arm bone. He did agree that the other was a rib bone. Lucas also believed that the bones were old and not from a recent kill. It is not known where the bones are today so they unfortunately can not be examined. The human flesh that was found inside the shark also no longer exists, Schleisser threw it out after its smell became too horrid.
The capture of Schleisser’s shark would end the killings, but not end the deaths entirely. On July 14 a man was swimming in the Shrewsbury River in New Jersey when he became distressed and several people rushed to his aid. Just before they reached him someone yelled that there was a shark in the water and everyone rushed out. The man's body was recovered 20 minutes later and did not have a scratch on him, he had drowned as a direct cause of peoples shark paranoia. One could say that he was the sixth victim of the “Jersey man-eater.”
Schleisser had the shark taxidermied by July 19 and it was displayed at the Bronx Home News Building, 30,000 people came to see it on that first day alone. Schleisser recounted his story and described the shark to anyone that asked, though he would not know what type of shark it was until the next day when Nichols, Lucas, and Murphy came to see the exhibit themselves. After a brief examination Nichols confirmed it was a young great white. Unfortunately the shark no longer survives, or at least its whereabouts are unknown, because Schleisser took it and other pieces of his taxidermy collection on a tour of the Far East. No record of the shark can be found after Schleisser returned.
Schleisser next to his shark. Public Domain.
The Right Shark?
At the time many accepted Schleisser’s shark as the one that performed the killings, but scientists today believe that it was the work of multiple sharks. Charles Vansant’s attack, where the shark bit him and then attempted to wait for him to bleed out, was most likely perpetrated by a great white. Charles Bruder took multiple hits which is most commonly seen with sharks of the carcharhinid family such as bulls, tigers, and sandbar sharks. Many believe Lester Stilwell and Stanley Fisher were attacked by a bull shark since they were in a freshwater creek and the bull is the only known shark to thrive in freshwater. Generally only the great white and tiger sharks are known to attack more than one person at a time, but bull sharks have been known to attack more than one victim in extreme circumstances. These circumstances include being under high stress which the shark was likely under being in a foreign environment. Joseph Dunn’s wounds point to a sandbar shark as the skin was lacerated and not cleanly cut. If this is true then it does lend credence to the report of multiple sharks being in the creek. Some scientists believe the creek may have been a spawning ground for sandbar sharks which is perhaps why they attacked, to defend their young. However great whites can not be ruled out entirely in any of these cases.
Bull shark. Courtesy of Shutterstock.
Some modern researchers, in particular Richard G. Fernicola M.D., have made the case that it was the same shark. The wounds on many of the victims measured 14 inches wide. The juvenile great white caught by Schleisser had a jaw span of about 9.5 inches. It appears that this could not be the shark but one must remember that almost all of the victims fought back and the shark was thrashing from side to side, this would cause the wound channel to widen bringing it up to that 14 inch mark. The shark that attacked Lester Stilwell did not consume much of his body. This leads scientists to believe that the shark was not attacking out of hunger but out of defense. It has been found that sharks do not like to feed in unfamiliar areas, such as Matawan Creek, and in these areas are more likely to attack due to stress or defense. This makes sense as the shark did not show any signs of aggression until the boys were near it. The reason the shark took multiple bites of the boy and attacked Stanley Fisher is likely because the multiple rescuers polling the waters overstimulated the shark and put it into a feeding frenzy. During these frenzies sharks have little control of their actions, all they know is bite. Feeding frenzies are most commonly seen in great whites, though other carcharhinids have been known to partake in them. In Joseph Dunn’s case a younger great whites teeth are often not yet serrated and instead cause lacerations like those seen on him.
Sandbar shark. Courtesy of Brian Gratwicke.
What is likely the most damning piece of evidence that it was the same shark, or were at least all perpetrated by a great white, is the fact the great whites are the only shark to attack upwards. Every other shark attacks down and looks for its prey underneath them. The great white feeds towards the surface and is commonly seen poking its head out of the water, it is the only shark to do so. Every single victim was attacked while on the surface from an upward angle.
A great white sticking its head out of the water. Courtesy of Oceana.
Now some people have made the argument that great whites have never been documented entering freshwater creeks such as Matawan and that means that the attacking shark had to have been a bull. While this is true, just about every other shark on the planet can also survive in freshwater for a limited amount of time. Plus Matawan was not all freshwater, it is actually mostly brackish water so it does have a much higher salinity than most inland creeks and streams. Add to this the fact that the moon and sun were causing ocean tides to rise as they started to align for the partial solar eclipse on July 14, 1914, and it is easy to see how the great white was able to survive for a couple days without losing too much salt. Plus bull sharks are actually less common than whites north of Cape Hatteras.
Adding to this theory is the fact that the attacks followed a northerly pattern. They were not dotted all over the map but continued in one constant direction. Schleisser’s shark follows this pattern as it was caught in Raritan Bay north of the mouth of Matawan Creek. Plus no other attacks occurred, or were at least reported, after his shark was caught.
Great white shark. Courtesy of Shutterstock.
A Perfect Storm
During 1916 both fisherman and scientists claimed to see more sharks off the coast of New Jersey and New York than usual. Surviving records from fish markets also show that they had an overabundance of sharks. It is unknown what exactly brought these sharks in, Dr. Frederic Lucas theorized that it was possibly just a “shark year” where many were migrating together. Others claim a reversal in the Gulf Stream brought sharks up from the tropics. Still some proposed that the sea battles happening in Europe drove sharks away and towards the Americas. Some speculated that sharks had even obtained a taste for human flesh from sailors who were involved in these naval battles. A similar theory from the time was that bombing practices off of Cape Hatteras drove vicious great whites northward. The German submarines were also implicated as some believed that they had a new technology that could attract sharks to an area. This theory has some merit as sharks can sense electromagnetic fields and could have been attracted to the steel hulls of the U-boats, though it is incredibly unlikely that it would draw more than a couple sharks to an area. Great white sharks are not found in abundance anywhere in the world. They are loners who travel where the food takes them, only pairing up to mate. However there does seem to be an unusually high density of great whites around the continental shelf between Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Mostly juveniles, those under 10 feet, are found here and it is believed that this area is a breeding ground for great whites. Still white sharks are rare off the New Jersey Coast.
Whatever the reason, this abundance of sharks was then drawn closer to shore by many different factors. Beach Haven’s surrounding waters were known to be teeming with life, in particular large sport fish that are the favorites of sharks. On top of this there were fish processing plants that kept a continual stream of guts and entrails flowing into the ocean. Adding to this trail of fish guts were the boats returning from fishing trips, they would often dump entrails overboard when they returned to port. Human waste also attracts sharks, and coincidentally 1916 was the first year New Jersey began pumping sewage into the ocean. May and June saw heavy rainfall which could’ve pumped more nutrients into the ocean from runoff that attracted small fish to the coastal areas. In turn drawing in predators from further up the food chain. Another factor was the sandbar shark. Sandbar sharks are generally not aggressive and it is not believed to have been the attacker, but they did appear in much larger numbers this year than any previous. It is possible that the sandbars inadvertently drew in more aggressive great whites because they were spawning, and baby sharks are one of the great whites' favorite foods.
Men in swimsuits popular during the time. Courtesy of Vintage Everyday.
The sandbar spawns may also help explain the attacks in Matawan Creek. Newspapers of the time did report that there were several sharks in the stream and that the area where Fisher and Stilwell were attacked was a spawning ground for sharks. For a long time this was believed to be media sensationalism but interviews with witnesses of the time seem to corroborate the story. Though great whites do not like being in tight spaces the allure of baby sharks could have caused one to swim up Matawan. The tightness of the creek then likely made the shark claustrophobic and more aggressive. Studies have also found that sharks are more apt to attack in murky or muddy water, such as those found at Matawan. This is because sharks have difficulty seeing and lead to cases of mistaken identity.
There are also certain factors that increase one's risk of being attacked by a shark. Swimming with a dog is more dangerous because the erratic paddling draws sharks in, this could be why Charles Vansant was attacked. Some newspapers of the time even claimed that the shark had originally gone for the dog and attacked Vansant once it had left the water. Another factor can be dark clothing, which most swimsuits of the time were either black or dark blue. A study was conducted in the 90s that found that 9 out of every 10 shark attack victims were wearing dark colored clothing when attacked. Sharks also attack contrasting colors, a dark swim suit against white skin. Shark attacks also occur more frequently during high tide, which was when all but one of the 1916 attacks happened. Scientists believe this is because prey is more active during this time and sharks are on the hunt.
Despite these numerous reasons the most likely one is the fact that more people were in the water during this year than any previous. Up until the early 1900s Americans, with some exceptions, did not go into the water when they were at the beach. This was because of modesty reasons and the conservative beliefs of the Victorian Era/Gilded Age. Now that swimming was becoming the norm more and more people were partaking in the newfound pastime. On top of this, 1916 had one of the hottest summers on record which brought in people from all over. There was also an infantile paralysis (polio) epidemic going on in New York City, and doctors believed that the fresh ocean air could cure and prevent children from coming down with the disease. 1916 had more people in the water than any years prior. With more people and all these contributing factors it was almost destined for someone to be attacked by a shark.
Women in swimsuits popular in the early 1900s. One can see how the dark color and contrasting lines would be perfect for attracting a shark. Public Domain.
Conservation
Even though sharks are portrayed as terrifying beasts in the media and pop culture they actually rarely attack humans. A person is actually more likely to be killed by lightning strike, a rip current, or in a car wreck on their way to the beach than by a shark. Most shark attacks are non fatal and are almost always caused by a case of mistaken identity. Even though sharks may attack humans from time to time they are nowhere near as dangerous as the books, films, and news reports make them out to be. Being the apex predator of the ocean they also serve an important role of keeping certain fish populations in check and acting as an indicator for how healthy our oceans are. Unfortunately many sharks are now endangered due to overfishing and other human factors that have caused an enormous decline in population since the 1960s. If you have a few dollars to spare I ask that you donate to one of the organizations below so that we may protect the creatures that are so vital to the health of the ocean ecosystem.
https://www.sharktrust.org/donate/donate/5/credit-card
https://netdonor.net/page/17238/donate/1
https://oceanfdn.org/donate/support-ocean-foundation/
Personal Thoughts
This article took me a long time to research and put together, but luckily I am interested in the ocean and sharks especially. I learned a lot about sharks while researching this and have a new found respect for the animal. I found it pretty crazy that people were not afraid of sharks when I first started researching, but it makes a lot of sense when you release they did not have the pop culture surrounding sharks as we do today. I never was really afraid of sharks and after learning so much about them I’m really not afraid of them at all. I understand their motivations and why they do what they do. I find it funny that Oelrichs was partially right, that it was a juvenile that was the aggressor.
I really want to see this made into a movie. Like I want a full production showing all the events. I think it would be a blockbuster if done properly.
Sources
Cover photo courtesy of Click Americana
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150702-shark-attack-jersey-shore-1916-great-white/
http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/topics/saf_nj_maneater.htm
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/05/31/blood-in-the-water-four-dead-a-coast-terrified-and-the-birth-of-modern-shark-mania/
https://www.history.com/news/the-real-life-jaws-that-terrorized-the-jersey-shore
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/nyregion/a-century-later-memories-of-fatal-shark-attacks-linger-in-new-jersey.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-shark-attacks-that-were-the-inspiration-for-jaws-15220260/
https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/sharks-rays/how-realistic-shark-science-shallows
http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=6284
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/s/sand-tiger-shark/
Book. Close to Shore by Michael Capuzzo
Book. Twelve Days of Terror: A Definitive Investigation of the 1916 New Jersey Shark Attacks by Richard G. Fernicola M.D.
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/yearly-worldwide-summary/#:~:text=The%202019%20worldwide%20total%20of,of%20four%20fatalities%20per%20year.
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/odds/compare-risk/
https://eu.oceana.org/en/importance-sharks-0#:~:text=As%20apex%20predators%2C%20sharks%20play,an%20indicator%20for%20ocean%20health.&text=By%20taking%20sharks%20out%20of,and%20feed%20on%20the%20herbivores.
