The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916
The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of incidents along the New Jersey coast in the United States, occurring between July 1 and 12, 1916. During this period, four people were killed and one critically injured by shark attacks. These events took place amidst a severe summer heat wave and a polio epidemic, which had driven thousands to the Jersey Shore's seaside resorts. Since then, there has been ongoing scholarly debate about the species responsible, with the great white shark and the bull shark being the most frequently mentioned suspects.
The public and national reaction to the fatalities sparked widespread panic, leading to shark hunts aimed at eradicating "man-eating" sharks to protect both people and the local economies of New Jersey's seaside communities. Resort towns installed steel nets around their public beaches to safeguard swimmers. Prior to 1916, scientific understanding of sharks was largely speculative. These attacks compelled ichthyologists to re-evaluate common assumptions about shark behavior and the nature of shark attacks.
The Jersey Shore attacks quickly became embedded in American popular culture, with sharks often depicted in editorial cartoons as symbols of danger.
Between July 1 and 12, 1916, five people were attacked by sharks along the New Jersey coast, with only one survivor. The first major incident occurred on Saturday, July 1, at Beach Haven, a resort town on Long Beach Island off southern New Jersey. Charles Epting Vansant, 23, from Philadelphia, was vacationing at the Engleside Hotel with his family. Before dinner, Vansant went for a quick swim in the Atlantic with a Chesapeake Bay Retriever playing on the beach. Shortly after entering the water, Vansant began shouting. Beachgoers initially thought he was calling to the dog, but a shark was actually attacking his legs. Lifeguard Alexander Ott and bystander Sheridan Taylor rescued Vansant, but they reported that the shark followed them to shore. Vansant's left thigh was severely injured, and he bled to death on the manager's desk at the Engleside Hotel at 6:45 PM.
Map of the Jersey Shore attacks
Despite this attack, Jersey Shore beaches remained open. Large sharks were sighted off the coast by sea captains entering the ports of Newark and New York City, but these reports were dismissed. The second major attack happened on Thursday, July 6, at the resort town of Spring Lake, 45 miles north of Beach Haven. Charles Bruder, 27, a Swiss bell captain at the Essex & Sussex Hotel, was attacked while swimming 130 yards from shore. A shark bit his abdomen and severed his legs, turning the water red with blood. A woman alerted lifeguards Chris Anderson and George White, who rowed out in a lifeboat and discovered Bruder had been bitten. They pulled him from the water, but he bled to death before reaching shore. According to The New York Times, women fainted as Bruder's mutilated body was brought ashore. Hotel guests and workers raised money for Bruder's mother in Switzerland.
The next three attacks occurred on Wednesday, July 12, in Matawan Creek near Keyport, 30 miles north of Spring Lake and inland from Raritan Bay. Matawan, resembling a Midwestern town rather than a beach resort, seemed an unlikely site for shark attacks. When sea captain and Matawan resident Thomas Cottrell spotted an 8-foot shark in the creek, the town dismissed his warning. Around 2:00 PM, a group of boys, including 11-year-old Lester Stillwell, were playing in the creek. At an area called "Wyckoff Dock," they noticed what looked like an old, weathered log. Suddenly, a dorsal fin appeared, and they realized it was a shark. Before Stillwell could climb out, the shark pulled him underwater.
The boys ran to town for help. Local businessman Watson Stanley Fisher, 24, and others dived into the creek to find Stillwell, believing he had suffered a seizure. While retrieving the boy's body, Fisher was also attacked by the shark, losing Stillwell in the process. Fisher's right thigh was severely injured, and he bled to death at Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch at 5:30 PM. Stillwell's body was recovered 150 feet upstream from the Wyckoff Dock on July 14.
The fifth and final victim, Joseph Dunn, 14, from New York City, was attacked a half-mile from Wyckoff Dock about 30 minutes after the fatal attacks on Stillwell and Fisher. The shark bit Dunn's left leg, but he was rescued by his brother and a friend after a fierce struggle with the shark. Dunn later told the press he felt his leg going down the shark's throat and believed it would have swallowed him. He was taken to Saint Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick, recovered from the bite, and was released on September 15, 1916.
As the national media descended on Beach Haven, Spring Lake, and Matawan, the Jersey Shore attacks ignited a widespread shark panic. Capuzzo described this panic as "unrivaled in American history," spreading along the coasts of New York and New Jersey through telephone, wireless, letters, and postcards.
Initially, after the Beach Haven incident, scientists and the press were reluctant to blame Charles Vansant's death on a shark. The New York Times reported that Vansant "was badly bitten in the surf ... by a fish, presumably a shark." James M. Meehan, Pennsylvania's State Fish Commissioner and former director of the Philadelphia Aquarium, claimed in the Philadelphia Public Ledger that the shark had been preying on a dog and bit Vansant by mistake. He downplayed the threat sharks posed to humans:
“Despite the death of Charles Vansant and the report [of] two sharks having been caught in that vicinity recently, I do not believe there is any reason why people should hesitate to go in swimming at the beaches for fear of man-eaters. The information in regard to the sharks is indefinite and I hardly believe that Vansant was bitten by a man-eater. Vansant was in the surf playing with a dog and it may be that a small shark had drifted in at high water and was marooned by the tide. Being unable to move quickly and without food, he had come in to bite the dog and snapped at the man in passing.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the capture of a "man-eating" shark off the Jersey Shore after the attacks.
The media's response to the second attack was more sensational. Major American newspapers, including 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 led to significant financial losses for New Jersey resort owners, estimated at $250,000 ($7,000,000 in 2023), and a 75 percent decline in sunbathing in some areas.
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. They tried to calm the panic by stressing that another shark attack was unlikely, although they were surprised that sharks had bitten anyone at all. Nevertheless, Nichols, the only ichthyologist among them, advised swimmers to stay close to shore and use the netted bathing areas installed at public beaches.
Following the attacks, shark sightings increased along the Mid-Atlantic Coast. On July 8, armed motorboats patrolling Spring Creek chased an animal believed to be a shark, and Asbury Park's Asbury Avenue Beach was closed after lifeguard Benjamin Everingham claimed to have beaten away a 12-foot shark with an oar. Sharks were reported near Bayonne, New Jersey; Rocky Point, New York; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; and Mobile, Alabama. A columnist from Field & Stream captured a sandbar shark in the surf at Beach Haven. Actress Gertrude Hoffmann, swimming at Coney Island shortly after the Matawan fatalities, claimed to have encountered a shark. She remembered reading in the Times that a bather could scare away a shark by splashing, and she beat the water furiously, later admitting she wasn't sure if she had barely escaped death or had overreacted.
Local New Jersey governments took measures to protect bathers and the economy. Asbury Park's Fourth Avenue Beach was enclosed with a steel-wire-mesh fence and patrolled by armed motorboats, remaining the only beach open after the Everingham incident. Following the attacks on Stilwell, Fisher, and Dunn, Matawan residents lined Matawan Creek with nets and detonated dynamite to catch and kill the shark. Matawan's mayor, Arris B. Henderson, printed wanted posters offering a $100 reward ($2,800 in 2023) to anyone who killed a shark in the creek. Despite these efforts, no sharks were captured in Matawan Creek.
Resort communities along the Jersey Shore petitioned the federal government for help. The House of Representatives appropriated $5,000 ($140,000 in 2023) to eradicate the shark threat, and President Woodrow Wilson scheduled a Cabinet meeting to discuss the attacks. Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo suggested mobilizing the Coast Guard to patrol the Jersey Shore and protect sunbathers. Shark hunts ensued along the coasts of New Jersey and New York, with armed shark hunters in motorboats and others lining the beaches in a concerted effort to exterminate the sharks. New Jersey Governor James Fairman Fielder and local municipalities offered bounties for hunting sharks. Hundreds of sharks were captured on the East Coast, making the hunt one of the largest-scale animal hunts in history.
Mural on bridge in area of Matawan Creek attacks, Matawan, NJ.
After the second shark attack, scientists and the public began speculating about which species of shark was responsible for the Jersey Shore attacks, or if multiple sharks were involved.
Lucas and Nichols proposed that a rogue shark swimming northward was responsible and predicted it would eventually reach New York's coast. They suggested, "Unless the shark came through the Harbor and went north through Hell Gate and Long Island Sound, it was presumed it would swim along the South Shore of Long Island and the first deep water inlet it reaches will be Jamaica Bay." Witnesses to the Beach Haven attack estimated the shark was 9 feet (3 meters) long. A sea captain who observed the incident believed it was a Spanish shark, driven from the Caribbean Sea decades earlier by bombings during the Spanish–American War. Several fishermen claimed to have caught the "Jersey man-eater" in the days following the attacks. A blue shark was captured on July 14 near Long Branch, and four days later, Thomas Cottrell, who had seen the shark in Matawan Creek, claimed to have captured a sandbar shark with a gillnet near the creek's mouth.
On July 14, Harlem taxidermist and Barnum and Bailey lion tamer Michael Schleisser caught a 7.5-foot (2.3-meter), 325-pound (147-kilogram) shark while fishing in Raritan Bay, just a few miles from the mouth of Matawan Creek. The shark nearly sank the boat before Schleisser killed it with a broken oar. When he opened the shark's belly, he found "suspicious fleshy material and bones" that filled "about two-thirds of a milk crate" and "together weighed fifteen pounds." Scientists identified the shark as a young great white and confirmed the ingested remains were human. Schleisser mounted the shark and displayed it in a Manhattan shop window on Broadway, but the specimen was later lost. The only surviving photograph appeared in the Bronx Home News.
No further attacks were reported along the Jersey Shore in the summer of 1916 after Schleisser's capture of the great white shark. Murphy and Lucas declared the great white to be the "Jersey man-eater."
However, some skeptics proposed alternative theories, suggesting a non-shark perpetrator or attributing the events to World War I-related influences.
In a letter to The New York Times, Barrett P. Smith of Sound Beach, New York, over 135 miles (217 kilometers) away on the far side of Long Island, wrote:
“Having read with much interest the account of the fatality off Spring Lake, N.J., I should like to offer a suggestion somewhat at variance with the shark theory. Scientists believe it is most unlikely that a shark was responsible, and lots of people though believe it much more likely that the attack was made by a sea turtle. Scientists have spent much time at sea and along shore, and have several times seen turtles large enough to inflict just such wounds. These creatures are of a vicious disposition, and when annoyed are extremely dangerous to approach, and it is a common theory that Bruder may have disturbed one while it was asleep on or close to the surface.”
German American Michael Schleisser and the great white shark caught in Raritan Bay purported to be the "Jersey man-eater", as seen in the Bronx Home News.
Another letter to The New York Times attributed the shark infestation to the maneuvers of German U-boats near America's East Coast. The anonymous writer speculated, "These sharks may have devoured human bodies in the waters of the German war zone and followed liners to this coast, or even followed the Deutschland herself, expecting the usual toll of drowning men, women, and children." The writer concluded, "This would account for their boldness and their craving for human flesh."
Over a century later, there is no consensus among researchers regarding Murphy and Lucas' investigation and findings. Richard G. Fernicola published two studies on the event, noting that "there are many theories behind the New Jersey attacks," but all remain inconclusive. Researchers such as Thomas Helm, Harold W. McCormick, Thomas B. Allen, William Young, Jean Campbell Butler, and Michael Capuzzo generally support Murphy and Lucas' conclusions.
However, the National Geographic Society reported in 2002 that some experts suggest the great white may not be responsible for many of the attacks attributed to the species. These experts propose that the lesser-known bull shark may be the real culprit behind many reported incidents, including the famous 1916 shark attacks in New Jersey that possibly inspired Jaws.
Biologists George A. Llano and Richard Ellis suggest that a bull shark could have been responsible for the fatal Jersey Shore attacks. Bull sharks can swim from the ocean into freshwater rivers and streams and have attacked people worldwide. In his book Sharks: Attacks on Man (1975), Llano writes:
“One of the most surprising aspects of the Matawan Creek attacks was the distance from the open sea. Elsewhere in the book are accounts of well-documented shark-human interactions at Ahwaz, Iran, which is 90 miles (140 km) upriver from the sea. It may also be of interest to note that sharks live in Lake Nicaragua, a fresh-water body, and in 1944 there was a bounty offered for dead freshwater sharks, as they had “killed and severely injured lake bathers recently.”
Ellis points out that the great white shark "is an oceanic species, and Schleisser's shark was caught in the ocean. To find it swimming in a tidal creek is, to say the least, unusual, and may even be impossible. The bull shark, however, is infamous for its freshwater meanderings, as well as for its pugnacious and aggressive nature." He notes that "the bull shark is not a common species in New Jersey waters, but it does occur more frequently than the white."
In an interview with Michael Capuzzo, ichthyologist George H. Burgess acknowledges, "The species involved has always been doubtful and likely will continue to generate spirited debate." Burgess does not discount the great white shark, stating:
"The bull draws a lot of votes because the location, Matawan Creek, suggests brackish or fresh waters, a habitat that bulls frequent and whites avoid. However, our examination of the site reveals that the size of the 'creek,' its depth, and salinity regime were closer to a marine embayment and that a smallish white clearly could have wandered into the area. Since an appropriately sized white shark with human remains in its stomach was captured nearby shortly after the attacks (and no further incidents occurred), it seems likely that this was the shark involved in at least the Matawan fatalities. The temporal and geographical sequence of the incidents also suggests that earlier attacks may have involved the same shark."
The International Shark Attack File, of which Burgess is director, lists the casualties of the 1916 attacks as victims of a great white shark.
The increased presence of humans in the water was a factor in the attacks: "As the worldwide human population continues to rise year after year, so does ... interest in aquatic recreation. The number of shark attacks in any given year or region is highly influenced by the number of people entering the water." However, the idea that one shark was responsible is debated. Scientists such as Victor M. Coppleson and Jean Butler, relying on evidence from Lucas and Murphy in 1916, assert that a single shark was responsible. Conversely, Richard Fernicola notes that 1916 was a "shark year," with fishermen and captains reporting hundreds of sharks in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Ellis remarks that "to try to make the facts as we know them conform to the 'rogue shark' theory is stretching sensationalism and credibility beyond reasonable limits." He admits, "The evidence is long gone, and we will never really know if it was one shark or several, one species or another, that was responsible."
In 2011, further study was conducted in the Smithsonian Channel's The Real Story: Jaws. The documentary examines the events from different perspectives. It was demonstrated that during the Matawan Creek attacks, the full moon of the lunar cycle, which coincided with the attacks, would have raised the salinity in the water significantly just a few hours before high tide, supporting the theory that a great white could have been responsible. Other evidence, such as Joseph Dunn's injury, suggested that the bite was more likely made by a bull shark, leading some to believe that more than one shark was involved in the five incidents.
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