The nor’easter that hit New England this weekend appears to have exposed large parts of a shipwrecked 19th-century schooner in what’s known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
The Warren Sawyer was sailing from New Orleans to Boston carrying cotton and scrap metal when the wooden three-masted ship ran aground on Nantucket on December 22, 1884. Its captain and crew of seven were rescued and the ship began to break up after several weeks on shore.
Today, Massachusetts marine investigators are examining pieces of wood tied together with rusty iron that emerged from the sand during the weekend storm, near where smaller remains of the lost schooner were previously found.
The Egan Maritime Institute, a nonprofit educational organization based in Nantucket, announced Monday that it would send staff in the coming days to examine the site and fragments. And the group said it would prepare a report for state archaeologists to help them identify the ship they came from.
The institute, in a statement to The Associated Press, said it was too early to be sure whether the newly surfaced segments actually came from Warren Sawyer.
Nantucket, he said, was one of the “graveyards of the Atlantic” and its “dangerous shoals and severe weather” contributed to more than 750 shipwrecks during the 19th century, when hundreds of ships passed through the island’s waters daily without modern maritime navigation equipment.
But the proximity to the recorded location of Warren Sawyer’s disappearance convinced journalist Jason Graziadei, editor of the online news site Nantucket Current, that it was likely.
Graziadei said he went to the beach Saturday during the storm with his eight-year-old son after receiving reports of a wreck on the island’s south shore, and he posted a video of what he saw on YouTube.
He said they found the wooden beams on a drive-in beach near the city’s sewage treatment facility, known as sewer beds, after parking and walking down to the beach because erosion from the storm had formed a steep dropoff.
“Given where it was and where it appeared, that means everyone who was driving to the beach this summer was right above it,” Graziadei said. “It’s amazing to think that over 100 years old, he’s still here.”
Records from the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources show that the Warren Sawyer was carrying 1,115 bales of cotton and 28 tons (25.4 metric tons) of scrap metal from New Orleans to Boston when it ran aground.
The schooner remained untouched on Miacomet Beach for two weeks, allowing the islanders to rescue 700 bales of cotton using skids and ox teams. On January 6, 1885, another storm tore the ship apart, scattering pieces of its hull, remnants of cargo, and ropes across more than a half-mile of beach.
Remains that may have come from the ship continued to emerge from the sand. Massachusetts state archaeologists inspected an approximately 40-foot hull section exposed on Miacomet Beach in late 2022 and concluded that it was likely part of the Warren Sawyer.
A roughly 15-foot square section of the lower stern appeared nearby in February 2023, but shifting sand buried it again before state archaeologists could return to document it.
The Egan Institute urged visitors not to disturb the newly exposed wreck. Massachusetts law prohibits the removal, damage, or movement of underwater archaeological resources.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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