Nor’easter unearths fragments of 19th-century shipwreck on Nantucket

The powerful nor’easter hitting the East Coast has unearthed what may be the remains of a 19th-century shipwreck on the Nantucket coast.

Jason Graziadei, editor of the Nantucket Current, spotted the wooden remains on the south shore of the Massachusetts island on Saturday and posted a video. He thinks they probably came from the Warren Sawyer, a wooden schooner that was wrecked near Miacomet Beach 142 years ago.

Fragments believed to be from the same ship first appeared in December 2022, when a Nantucket resident spotted them while cycling along the island’s south coast.

Researchers examined archival, photographic, historical and archaeological evidence and concluded that the wreck “most likely” came from the Warren Sawyer, according to a 2023 report from the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources. The three-masted schooner was wrecked there on Dec. 22, 1884, while traveling from New Orleans to Boston with 1,115 bales of cotton and 28 tons of scrap metal, according to the report.

Additional wreckage that may be from the schooner appeared in February 2023, about a half-mile west of the first discovery, according to the report.

“As far as I know, this is the first time that a piece of the wreckage has surfaced since 2022, early 2023,” Graziadei told NBC News on Sunday. “It’s certainly possible that this is from another wreck, but given the location and appearance, we said it was most likely the Warren Sawyer.”

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger, deputy director of the Maria Mitchell Association, which operates a natural history museum on Nantucket, said in an email Sunday that the newly exposed remains could come from Warren Sawyer, but “further investigation is needed” to confirm their origin.

The Massachusetts Underwater Archaeological Resources Council did not respond to requests for comment Sunday.

The Egan Maritime Institute, which works to preserve Nantucket’s maritime history and assisted the board in its previous efforts to identify the wreck of the Warren Sawyer, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Shipwrecks near the island were not uncommon in Warren Sawyer’s era, Leonardo Finger told The New York Times on Saturday. Nantucket residents typically salvage items washed up on shipwrecks, she said.