Summer of the Shark

The Real Life Jaws

 

Most of us have seen the movie, Jaws.  It’s about Amity, a beach community situated somewhere near Long Island, New York.  Amity police chief Martin Brody leads a fairly boring life until a great white shark moves into his territory and begins to eat people.  To protect his community and his family, Brody must kill the shark.

The 1975 movie by Steven Spielberg was based on a 1974 book by Peter Benchley.

What many people don’t know is that the book may have been inspired by actual events from the summer of 1916.

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The killer in “Jaws” is a great white shark, estimated at 20 feet long.  In the book, marine biologist Matt Hooper describes the shark, “You have to understand.  There’s nothing in the sea this fish would fear.  Other fish run from bigger things.  That’s their instinct.  But this fish doesn’t run from anything.  He doesn’t know fear.  He might be cautious – say around an even bigger white.  But fear – no way.”

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It was a hot summer in 1916.  Unlike now, people couldn’t stay inside in air conditioned comfort, to escape the heat.  The best way to do that back then was to go for a swim.  The seaside resorts of the Jersey Shore drew thousands of people to the cool water…and at least four people to their deaths.

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Charles Vansant was hot and sweaty that first day of July.  He was visiting Beach Haven, a resort town on Long Beach Island off the southern coast of New Jersey.  The young man left the Engleside Hotel, where he and his family were staying, and went to the beach for a quick swim before dinner.  On the way he made friends with a Chesapeake Bay Retriever that was playing on the beach.  The two splashed and frolicked in the shallow water.  As the man went deeper he suddenly began shouting.  Witnesses thought he was yelling at the dog, but no.  He was screaming at something much bigger than a Chessy.

A shark was biting chunks out of his legs.

As lifeguard Alexander Ott and bystander Sheridan Taylor tried to pull him ashore the shark followed them to the beach. Vansant’s left thigh was stripped of its flesh.  He bled to death on the manager’s desk of the Engleside Hotel.

Witnesses of the attack estimated the shark was nine feet long.

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As in the book and the movie, authorities decided not to close the beaches along the Jersey Shore.  Apparently they underestimated the danger despite the death and the fact that sea captains entering the ports of Newark and New York City reported large sharks swarming off the coast of New Jersey.

Their reticence to act may have left Charles Bruder with only five days to live.

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Bruder, 27, was a bellhop at the Essex & Sussex Hotel, about 45 miles north of Beach Haven at the resort town of Spring Lake, New Jersey.  On July 6, he was swimming about 130 yards from shore when a shark bit him on the abdomen, severing his legs.

A woman heard his screams and notified lifeguards Chris Anderson and George White, who pulled Bruder to land.  By the time they reached the beach Bruder had bled to death.

According to The New York Times, “women (were) panic-stricken (and fainted) as (Bruder’s) mutilated body … (was) brought ashore.”

I bet.

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Media circled around the story but officials downplayed the events.  Still, shark mania swept along the coast.  The panic was “unrivaled in American history,” according to one expert.  New Jersey resort owners lost an estimated $250,000 (about $5,600,000 today) in revenue.  Swimming declined 75% in some areas.

A panel of specialists tried to calm the public on July 8, saying a third run-in with a shark was unlikely.  The experts said they were surprised that sharks had bitten anyone at all.

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Scarcely four days later, and a week after the first two attacks, on Wednesday, July 12, sea captain Thomas Cottrell reported seeing an eight foot long shark in Matawan Creek, near the town of Keyport.  His report was dismissed and residents went about their everyday lives.

Until about 2 p.m.

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Lester Stilwell, an 11 year old epileptic, was playing with friends in Matawan creek near Wyckoff dock when they noticed something floating in the water.  A dorsal fin appeared and the boys scrambled to get onto land.  Lester Stilwell didn’t make it.  He had been pulled beneath the surface by jaws studded with rapier teeth.

The boys ran for help and several men, including local businessman Watson Stanley Fisher, 24, rushed to help.  They assumed the youngster had suffered a seizure so they didn’t hesitate to dive into the creek.  They soon located what was left of him.

While trying to help retrieve the body, Fisher was struck hard in the right thigh.  Shocked bystanders rallied to take him to Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch where he died from the massive blood loss.

Lester Stilwell’s body was recovered near Wyckoff dock two days later.

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The same day Stilwell and Fisher were killed and only a half-mile from the Wyckoff dock, 14 year old New Yorker, Joseph Dunn, played in the creek, possibly unaware of what had just happened about 800 yards away.  Suddenly a shark grabbed the boy’s left leg.  Dunn’s quick thinking brother and a friend engaged in a tug-of-war with the beast, finally pulling the boy loose.  Joseph was taken to Saint Peter University Hospital in New Brunswick where he was kept for more than a month.

Joseph Dunn recovered enough to be released on September 15.  He would carry horrible scars for the rest of his life.

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After the attack on three people in only one day Matawan mayor Arris B. Henderson offered a $100 reward (about $2,200 today) to anyone killing a shark in the creek.

Reminiscent of the “crazy fishermen” scene in the movie version of Jaws, residents lined Matawan Creek with nets, guns, and dynamite.  The U.S. House of Representatives appropriated $5,000 (about $110,000 today) to rid the coast of the shark threat.  Some communities offered rewards.  Armed shark hunters in motor boats patrolled the New York and New Jersey coast.  Numerous other measures were taken and it is estimated that hundreds of sharks were caught and killed.  The East Coast shark hunt has been described as “the largest scale animal hunt in history.”

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On July 14, Michael Schleisser and friend John Murphy caught a shark within a few miles of the mouth of Matawan Creek. The beast was 7 1/2 feet long and weighed 325 pounds but nearly sank the boat before Schleisser killed it with a broken oar. In the shark’s belly, he removed a “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 the ingested remains as human.  A taxidermist, Schleisser mounted the shark and placed it on display in the window of a Manhattan shop on Broadway.

Experts declared Schleisser’s great white to be the Jersey man-eater.  The mounted animal has since been lost to the mists of time. The only surviving photograph appeared in the Bronx Home News.

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The horrific shark attacks stopped after July 12.  Whether the shark responsible was caught by Schleisser is not known for sure.  Experts don’t agree.  They even disagree whether a single shark made all the attacks or not.  Some even argue that a shark did not make any of them at all.

Nonetheless, the shark attacks of the summer of 1916 came to an end.

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Peter Benchley denies that the 1916 shark attacks served as his inspiration for “Jaws”, despite the fact that they were mentioned in the movie.  It has been acknowledged that he knew about them.  Benchley even referred to them in his 1994 novel, “White Shark.”

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Despite Benchley’s denials, ichthyologist George Burgess calls the events of that summer the “most unique set of shark attacks that ever have occurred.”

Unique indeed.

 

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