Strong breaking waves from the violent Northeast uncovered a 19th-century shipwreck buried beneath the sands of Nantucket as the storm battered the East Coast with heavy rain, high winds and coastal flooding.
A waterlogged wooden pallet held together by rusty nails and strands of seaweed was discovered Saturday on a beach on the south shore of the famous Massachusetts island, according to a video shared by the Nantucket Current on Saturday.
The wooden segment is believed to come from the Warren Sawyer, a New Orleans-bound schooner that crashed on nearby Miacomet Beach in 1884.
The ship, carrying a cargo consisting of cotton and scrap metal, was struck by strong winds, veered off course and crashed on Nantucket around 11 p.m. on Dec. 22, 1884, according to the news outlet.
Other pieces of the wreckage had already been discovered in the area in December 2022.
Scientists determined the coins likely belonged to Warren Sawyer after months of research.
“As with most historical archaeological research, exploring the available literature, the archival, photographic and archaeological evidence that we collectively gathered for the site to try to come to a conclusive determination as to whether or not the wreck came from the Warren Sawyer tern, was a bit like pulling the thread of a sweater,” Massachusetts archaeologist David Robinson told the Nantucket Current. “The more interesting information I looked at, the more I found. »
Scientists at the time could not state with certainty that the ship wreck was that of the Warren Sawyer due to an inconsistency between the found fastening material and the ship’s records.
In addition to discovering the wreckage of the ship, the storm caused notable erosion of the island’s beaches, according to the media outlet.
Nantucket’s rare September nor’easter left a trail of destruction as it swept across much of the Eastern Seaboard stretching from Massachusetts to Long Island, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
Hundreds of thousands of people were left without power in several states.
More than 27,600 customers in New York were in the dark as of 2 a.m. Sunday, according to tracker Poweroutage.us.
In Connecticut, another 26,000 people were also helpless.
Massachusetts reported 11,500 people without power.
The storm turned deadly Saturday afternoon when Leighton Brown, 56, a New York City Housing Authority employee, was killed when he was struck by a fallen tree at Cypress Hills homes in Brooklyn, New York City Mayor Mamdani said.
Brown, 56, was rushed to hospital but was pronounced dead shortly after 5pm after suffering “trauma throughout his body”.
New York State Police also reported that an unidentified missing swimmer went missing while in the waters off Long Island’s Robert Moses State Park.
“On Saturday, September 26, 2026, at approximately 2:30 p.m., a white male wearing dark colored shorts was seen in the ocean water when he disappeared from view and was not seen exiting the water,” police said.
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