Remnants Of Unknown Shipwreck Discovered Along Jersey Shore

STONE HARBOR, NJ - The massive remains of a ship have turned up along the coast of the Jersey Shore, and no one is quite sure where they come from.

Michael Zuccato of Michael Z Photography first noticed the wreck moving in with the tide in Stone Harbor two weeks ago, according to Stone Harbor Museum President Jim Talone.

“The wreck measures 25 feet long by 14 feet across the beams,” Talone said. “The beams vary in thickness but most are 8 or 9 inches thick. It may be part of a much larger boat that sank a long time ago.”

Steve Murray, former chairman of the Friends of Hereford Inlet Lighthouse, told The Press of Atlantic City, “there’s a very good possibility that it’s the Ingraham.” The Stone Harbor Museum picked up on that message and has posted multiple articles telling the tale of the Ingraham on its Facebook page.

The schooner D.H. Ingraham became shipwrecked off the Jersey coast on Dec. 4, 1886. According to a passage from the Ocean City, Maryland, Life-Saving Station Museum:

“At half past 10 o'clock at night, during a northeast gale of wind and thick snowstorm, the patrol of the Hereford Inlet Station, (Fourth District) coast of New Jersey, was attracted by the gleam of a torch in the direction of the north bar, about two miles east of the station. It being quite evident to his mind that a vessel was ashore and in distress, he hurried back with all speed and alarmed the life-saving crew. The surf boat was launched as quickly as possible, and after a hard pull in the heavy sea lasting more than two hours, with nothing to guide them through the blinding storm and darkness but the glimmer of the torch, they finally arrived alongside the craft at 1 o'clock in the morning, (5th.) She proved to be the schooner D. H. Ingraham, of and from Rockland, Maine, bound to Richmond, Virginia, with a cargo of lime. The latter was on fire, and the sailors, numbering five men, were fearful lest assistance should not reach them in time, and they would be obliged to abandon the vessel in their small yawl-boat, a proceeding that would doubtless have been attended with fatal results. They were taken into the surf boat without delay, conveyed safely ashore, and conducted to the station. By sunrise the deck had burned completely off and the schooner began breaking up. She soon became a total wreck. Her crew were sheltered and fed by the surfmen for four days.”

But Talone isn’t convinced it’s the Ingraham, or any other particular ship for that matter.

“It could be the Ingraham, but it could also be one to two dozen other ships that went down,” Talone told Patch on Thursday.

He’s taken pictures of the boat and showed them to a friend who is a historian. Talone was told it was a very old ship, but someone has to be able to figure out the architecture, and even exactly how big the ship was.

“People are intrigued by it,” said Talone, himself included. “I would love to get one of the beams for the museum, but they probably weigh about 400 pounds each.”

He also said it’s not uncommon for remnants of a shipwreck to be discovered along the Jersey Shore, as storms can shift sand around and uncover what’s just below the surface. But many of the remnants that come to light may never be identified, especially the older they get.

Talone said there was a lot of traffic up and down the coast, and hundreds of shipwrecks as storms forced ships to come too close to land. Before 1850, there weren’t many people living in the area. In 1850, life saving stations began to be established up and down the coast, including in Stone Harbor, Cape May and Avalon.

“In 1930, a tug went down, and when they found it, they knew what it was and where it came from,” Talone said. “Anything before 1850, you might not know about it.”

That won’t stop him from trying to figure it out. Later Thursday, he was planning to head back to the wreck with a historian and see what more they could learn about the wreck and its possible origins.

In the meantime, the public will continue to wonder what the ship was, where it came from, and who may have been on board. It’s a mystery that dates back possibly hundreds of years, and one that may never be solved.

Attached image posted by the Stone Harbor Museum.