The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey, in the United States, between July 1 and 12, 1916, in which four people were killed and one critically injured. The incidents occurred during a deadly summer heat wave and polio epidemic in the United States that drove thousands of people to the seaside resorts of the Jersey Shore. Since 1916, scholars have debated which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the great white shark and the bull shark most frequently cited.
Personal and national reaction to the fatalities involved a wave of panic that led to shark hunts aimed at eradicating the population of "man-eating" sharks and protecting the economies of New Jersey's seaside communities. Resort towns enclosed their public beaches with steel nets to protect swimmers. Scientific knowledge about sharks before 1916 was based on conjecture and speculation. The attacks forced ichthyologists to reassess common beliefs about the abilities of sharks and the nature of shark attacks.
The Jersey Shore attacks immediately entered into American popular culture, where sharks became caricatures in editorial cartoons representing danger. The attacks became the subject of documentaries for the History Channel, National Geographic Channel, and Discovery Channel, which aired 12 Days of Terror (2004) and the Shark Week episode Blood in the Water (2009).
Incidents and victims
Between July 1 and 12, 1916, five people were attacked along the coast of New Jersey by sharks; only one of the victims survived—a child. The first major attack occurred on Saturday, July 1 at Beach Haven, a resort town established on Long Beach Island off the southern coast of New Jersey. Charles Epting Vansant, 23, of Philadelphia, was on vacation at the Engleside Hotel with his family. Before dinner, Vansant decided to take a quick swim in the Atlantic with a Chesapeake Bay Retriever that was playing on the beach. Shortly after entering the water, Vansant began shouting. Bathers believed he was calling to the dog, but a shark was actually biting Vansant's legs. He was rescued by lifeguard Alexander Ott and bystander Sheridan Taylor, who claimed the shark followed him to shore as they pulled the bleeding Vansant from the water. Vansant's left thigh was stripped of its flesh; he bled to death on the manager's desk of the Engleside Hotel at 6:45 PM.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, pp. 1–9; Capuzzo, Close to Shore, pp. 88–103; Thomas B. Allen, Shadows in the Sea, pp. 3–4.
Despite the Vansant attack, beaches along the Jersey Shore remained open. Sightings of large sharks swimming off the coast of New Jersey were reported by sea captains entering the ports of Newark and New York City but were dismissed. The second major attack occurred on Thursday, July 6, 1916, at the resort town of Spring Lake, New Jersey, north of Beach Haven. The victim was Charles Bruder, 27, a Swiss bell captain at the Essex & Sussex Hotel. Bruder was attacked while swimming from shore. A shark bit his abdomen and severed his legs; Bruder's blood turned the water red. After hearing screams, a woman notified two lifeguards that a canoe with a red hull had capsized and was floating at the water's surface. Lifeguards Chris Anderson and George White rowed to Bruder in a lifeboat and realized he had been bitten by a shark. They pulled him from the water, but he bled to death on the way to shore. According to The New York Times, "women [were] panic-stricken [and fainted] as [Bruder's] mutilated body ... [was] brought ashore." Guests and workers at the Essex & Sussex and neighboring hotels raised money for Bruder's mother in Switzerland.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, pp. 13–21, 29; Capuzzo, Close to Shore, pp. 136–146; Allen, Shadows in the Sea, pp. 4–6.
The next three attacks took place in Matawan Creek near the town of Keyport on Wednesday, July 12. Located north of Spring Lake and inland of Raritan Bay, Matawan resembled a Midwestern town rather than an Atlantic beach resort.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, pp. 33–34. Matawan's location made it an unlikely site for interactions between sharks and humans. When Thomas Cottrell, a sea captain and Matawan resident, spotted an shark in the creek, the town dismissed him.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, p. 45. Around 2:00 PM a group of local boys, including young Lester Stillwell, 11, were playing in the creek together. One of the boys had brought along his pet dog, which was swimming with them as well. At an area called "Wyckoff Dock" they saw what appeared to be an "old, black weather-beaten board or a weathered log." A dorsal fin appeared in the water and the boys realized it was a shark. Before Stillwell could climb from the creek, the shark pulled him underwater.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, pp. 45–50.
The boys ran to town for help, and several men, including local businessman Watson Stanley Fisher, 24, came to investigate. Fisher and others dove into the creek to find Stillwell, thinking he had suffered a seizure. After locating the boy's body and attempting to return to shore, Fisher was also bitten by the shark in front of the townspeople, losing Stillwell in the process.Capuzzo, Close to Shore, pp. 238–240. His right thigh was severely injured and he bled to death at Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch at 5:30 PM.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, pp. 45–56. Stillwell's body was recovered upstream from the Wyckoff dock on July 14.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, pp. 83–84; Capuzzo, Close to Shore, pp. 205–248; Allen, Shadows in the Sea, pp. 8–12
The fifth and final victim, Joseph Dunn, 14, of New York City was attacked a half-mile (~805 m) from the Wyckoff dock nearly 30 minutes after the fatal attacks on Stillwell and Fisher. The shark bit his left leg, stripping it of flesh, but Dunn was rescued by his brother and friend after a vicious tug-of-war battle with the shark. Dunn told the press that he felt his leg going down the shark's throat, "I believe it would have swallowed me." Dunn was taken to Saint Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick; he recovered from the bite and was released on September 15, 1916.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, pp. 56–57, 158, 176; Allen, Shadows in the Sea, p. 12, lists Dunn as 14, not 12; The New York Times reported his age at 12 ("Shark Kills 2 Bathers, Maims 1, Near New York," July 13, 1916, p. 1); see also Joseph Dunn's census and hospital records for his age at the time of the incidents; last accessed September 1, 2007.
Reaction As the national media descended on Beach Haven, Spring Lake, and Matawan, the Jersey Shore attacks started a shark panic. According to Capuzzo, this panic was "unrivaled in American history", "sweeping along the coasts of New York and New Jersey and spreading by telephone and wireless, letter and postcard."Capuzzo, Close to Shore, p. 269.
At first, after the Beach Haven incident, scientists and the press only reluctantly blamed the death of Charles Vansant on a shark.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, p. 9. The New York Times reported that Vansant "was badly bitten in the surf ... by a fish, presumably a shark.""Dies After Attack By Fish," The New York Times, July 3, 1916, p. 18. Still, State Fish Commissioner of Pennsylvania and former director of the Philadelphia Aquarium James M. Meehan asserted in the Philadelphia Public Ledger that the shark was preying on the dog and had bitten Vansant by mistake.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, pp. 7–11. He specifically de-emphasized the threat sharks posed to humans:
The media's response to the second attack was more sensational. Major American newspapers such as the Boston Herald, Chicago Sun-Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle placed the story on the front page. The New York Times' headline read, "Shark Kills Bather Off Jersey Beach". The growing panic cost New Jersey resort owners an estimated $250,000 ($ in ) in lost tourism, and sun bathing declined by 75 percent in some areas.Allen, Shadows in the Sea, p. 7.
A press conference was convened on July 8, 1916, at the American Museum of Natural History, with scientists Frederic Augustus Lucas, John Treadwell Nichols, and Robert Cushman Murphy as panelists. To calm the growing panic, the three men stressed that a third run-in with a shark was unlikely, although they were admittedly surprised that sharks bit anyone at all. Nevertheless, Nichols—the only ichthyologist in the trio—warned swimmers to stay close to shore and to take advantage of the netted bathing areas installed at public beaches after the first attack.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, pp. 22–23.
Shark sightings increased along the Mid-Atlantic Coast following the attacks. On July 8, armed motorboats patrolling the beach at Spring Creek chased an animal they thought to be a shark, and Asbury Park's Asbury Avenue Beach was closed after lifeguard Benjamin Everingham claimed to have beaten away a shark with an oar. Sharks were spotted near Bayonne, New Jersey; Rocky Point, New York; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; and Mobile, Alabama, and a columnist from Field & Stream captured a sandbar shark in the surf at Beach Haven."Motor Boats Hunt Man-Eating Sharks Off Jersey Coast," Atlanta Constitution, July 14, 1916, p. 3.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, p. 26–27. Actress Gertrude Hoffmann was swimming at the Coney Island beach shortly after the Matawan fatalities when she claimed to have encountered a shark. The New York Times noted that Hoffman "had the presence of mind to remember that she had read in the Times that a bather can scare away a shark by splashing, and she beat up the water furiously." Hoffman was certain she was going to be devoured by the "Jersey man-eater", but later admitted she was "not sure ... whether she had her trouble for nothing or had barely escaped death."Capuzzo, Close to Shore, p. 267–269.
Local New Jersey governments tried to protect bathers and the economy from man-eating sharks."Shark Guards Out At Beach Resorts; Wire Nets Set Against Supposed Man-Eater That Killed Spring Lake Bather," The New York Times, July 8, 1916, p. 18. The Fourth Avenue Beach at Asbury Park was enclosed with a steel-wire-mesh fence and patrolled by armed motorboats; it remained the only beach open following the Everingham incident. After the attacks on Stilwell, Fisher, and Dunn, residents of Matawan lined Matawan Creek with nets and detonated dynamite in an attempt to catch and kill the shark. Matawan mayor Arris B. Henderson ordered the Matawan Journal to print wanted posters offering a $100 reward ($ in dollars) to anyone who killed a shark in the creek. Despite these efforts, no sharks were captured or killed in Matawan Creek.Fernicola, Twelve Days of Terror, p. 67.