A marine surveyor planned to visit a Nantucket beach Monday to inspect weathered wooden beams exposed by the weekend. mighty nor’easterpossibly the remains of a 19th century shipwreck buried beneath the southern coast of the island.
The Egan Maritime Institute said its exhibits and collections manager will inspect the site and send a report to state underwater archaeologists, who will then work with the institute to determine which ship the wreck came from.
The splintered timbers, held together with rusty iron, emerged near an area where suspected remains from the Warren Sawyer, a wooden schooner lost in 1884, have previously been found.
Officials with Egan, a nonprofit organization that operates the Nantucket Shipwreck & Life saving Museum, cautioned Monday that the newly exposed wreck had not been positively identified.
The slow-moving nor’easter slammed the Northeast coast over the weekend with heavy rain, strong winds and dangerous surf, flooding low-lying communities from New Jersey to New England and at times knocking out power to more than 100,000 customers on Sunday.
Several boats were washed up on the shore in Massachusetts, and the storm also raised concerns about coastal erosion as waves crashed into beaches and seawalls.
Jason Graziadei/Nantucket Current via AP 
The Warren Sawyer ran aground on Dec. 22, 1884, while carrying 1,115 bales of cotton and 28 tons of scrap metal from New Orleans to Boston, according to the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources. Her captain and seven crew members were eventually rescued.
The schooner remained untouched on Miacomet Beach for two weeks, allowing the islanders to rescue 700 bales of cotton using skids and ox teams. Then, on January 6, 1885, another storm tore the ship apart, scattering pieces of its hull, the remains of the cargo and ropes across more than a half-mile of beach.
More than a century later, the suspected remains of the ship continued to emerge from the sand.
Jason Graziadei, who has lived on the island for two decades and is editor of the online news site Nantucket Current, said he went to the beach Saturday amid high winds with his 8-year-old son after receiving reports of a possible shipwreck on the island’s south shore.
He and his son found the wooden beams on a drive-in beach near the city’s sewage treatment facility that everyone calls “sewer beds.” He said they had to park their car and walk down to the beach because erosion from the storm had formed a steep dropoff.
The location made the discovery even more remarkable to him: It was directly under a road that beachgoers had used all summer.
“Given where it was and where it emerged, that means everyone who was driving to the beach this summer was right above it,” Graziadei said. “I just think it’s so funny and so cool.”
The Nantucket Current posted video of the shipwreck on the beach, showing waves crashing against wooden beams.
Graziadei said his son was excited about the discovery and began asking what happened to the people on the ship and why it ran aground. Both were able to walk to the exposed wreckage.
“It’s amazing to think that at over 100 years old it’s still here,” Graziadei said.
State archaeologists inspected an approximately 42-foot hull section exposed on Miacomet Beach in late 2022 and concluded that it was likely part of the Warren Sawyer. A roughly 15-square-foot section of the lower stern appeared nearby in February 2023, but shifting sand buried it again before state archaeologists could return to document it.
“Cemeteries of the Atlantic”
Nantucket is one of the areas known as the “Graveyards of the Atlantic,” with more than 750 shipwrecks estimated in the surrounding waters. Last September, a dive team identified a wreck off the coast of Nantucket as a World War I-era fishing boat. sank almost 100 years ago with more than 20 men on board.
The institute urged visitors not to disturb the newly exposed wreck. Massachusetts law prohibits the removal, damage, or movement of underwater archaeological resources.
According to the Nantucket Current, the Inquirer and Mirror newspaper published this account of the sinking of the Warren Sawyer in 1945:
“Patrolman Eugene Clisby saw the lights of the schooner Miacomet Rip and rushed to the station to “call everyone.” The waves were raging, completely enveloping the craft with only the swinging masts visible in the darkness of the night. Captain Veeder pulled a line over the jib holder, placing it as far forward to avoid hitting anyone on board. But the sailors were too numbed by the cold to attempt to move forward to secure it. Finally, Patrol Boat Williams, in calm weather, rushed onto the beach and, with a hand line, passed a line over her bow. The sailors crossed the sea-washed bridges and secured the line. A hawser was moored and a breech buoy rigged.
“With the schooner reeling from the impact of the sea it was difficult to maintain constant tension on the hawser, but the experienced rescuers worked tirelessly and by the arrival of the morning of the 23rd everyone had landed safely on the beach.”
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