A maritime specialist is scheduled to visit a beach on Nantucket Island on Monday to examine wooden beams that have been revealed by a powerful nor’easter over the weekend. These beams may be remnants of a 19th-century shipwreck thought to be buried beneath the island’s southern shoreline.
The Egan Maritime Institute announced that its exhibits and collections manager will conduct an assessment of the site and subsequently provide a report to state underwater archaeologists. These experts will collaborate with the institute to ascertain the origins of the wreckage.
The weathered wood, held together by corroded iron fastenings, surfaced in an area previously associated with the remains of the Warren Sawyer, a wooden schooner that sank in 1884.
Officials from the Egan Maritime Institute, which manages the Nantucket Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum, emphasized that the newly uncovered wreckage has yet to be definitively identified.
This nor’easter impacted the Northeast coast over the weekend, bringing heavy rainfall, fierce winds, and hazardous surf conditions. The storm led to flooding in several low-lying regions from New Jersey to New England and caused power outages affecting over 100,000 residents at times on Sunday.
In Massachusetts, numerous boats were swept ashore, and concerns about coastal erosion were raised as waves battered beaches and seawalls.
The Warren Sawyer ran aground on December 22, 1884, while transporting 1,115 bales of cotton and 28 tons of scrap iron from New Orleans to Boston, as reported by the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources. The ship’s captain and his crew of seven were eventually rescued.
For two weeks, the schooner remained intact on Miacomet Beach, allowing locals to recover 700 bales of cotton using oxen and sleds. However, on January 6, 1885, another storm destroyed the ship, scattering parts of its hull, cargo, and rigging across a stretch of beach over half a mile long.
More than a century later, pieces of what is believed to be the Warren Sawyer continue to surface from the sands.
Jason Graziadei, who has resided on the island for 20 years and serves as the editor of the online news outlet Nantucket Current, ventured out to the beach on Saturday with his 8-year-old son after receiving a tip about possible wreckage on the southern shore.
They stumbled upon the wooden beams on a drive-on beach near the town’s wastewater facility, colloquially referred to as the “Sewer Beds.” Due to storm-induced erosion, they had to park their car and walk to the beach, as a steep drop-off had formed.
Graziadei found the discovery particularly significant, as it lay directly beneath a route that beachgoers had been using throughout the summer. “Considering its location, it’s amusing to think that everyone driving onto the beach this summer was passing right over it,” he remarked. “I find it both intriguing and amusing.”
The Nantucket Current shared a video online showcasing the shipwreck, with waves crashing over the exposed wooden beams.
Graziadei noted his son’s enthusiasm upon discovering the wreck and his curious questions about the fate of the ship’s crew and the reasons behind the grounding. The two were able to approach the exposed remnants closely.
“It’s astounding to think that something over 100 years old is still present,” Graziadei stated.
In late 2022, state archaeologists examined a section of hull measuring approximately 42 feet that was exposed on Miacomet Beach and determined it likely belonged to the Warren Sawyer. A smaller piece of the lower stern, about 15 feet square, was found nearby in February 2023 but was subsequently buried again by shifting sands before the archaeologists could document it.
Nantucket is part of a region known as the “graveyards of the Atlantic,” with estimates of over 750 shipwrecks in the surrounding waters. Last September, a dive team identified a shipwreck off Nantucket’s coast as a World War I-era fishing vessel that sank nearly a century ago, taking over 20 men down with it.
The Egan Maritime Institute has urged visitors to refrain from disturbing the newly surfaced wreckage, as Massachusetts law prohibits the removal, damage, or displacement of underwater archaeological resources.
According to the Nantucket Current, an account of the Warren Sawyer shipwreck published by the Inquirer and Mirror in 1945 described the rescue efforts, detailing how Patrolman Eugene Clisby and the life-saving crew worked tirelessly to secure the vessel and save its crew amidst raging surf and darkness.
