A maritime expert plans to visit a Nantucket beach to inspect wooden beams exposed by a recent nor’easter. These beams may be remnants of a 19th-century shipwreck buried beneath Nantucket’s southern shore. The Egan Maritime Institute’s exhibits and collections manager will survey the site and report to state underwater archaeologists. Together, they aim to identify the vessel from which the wreckage originated.
These splintered timbers, held together by rusted iron, appeared near a location where remains thought to be from the Warren Sawyer, a wooden schooner lost in 1884, have been discovered previously. Officials from Egan cautioned that the new wreckage has not been identified with certainty. The nor’easter that exposed the wreckage caused severe weather along the Northeast coastline, with heavy rain, strong winds, and dangerous surf. It flooded low-lying communities from New Jersey to New England and resulted in power outages for over 100,000 customers at times.
The Warren Sawyer ran aground on December 22, 1884, while transporting 1,115 bales of cotton and 28 tons of scrap iron from New Orleans to Boston. According to the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources, the captain and seven-member crew were rescued. The schooner remained on Miacomet Beach for two weeks, allowing residents to save 700 bales of cotton using skids and oxen. On January 6, 1885, another storm broke the ship apart, scattering its pieces over half a mile of beach. Over a century later, remains believed to be from this ship continue to emerge from the sand.
Jason Graziadei, editor of the online news site the Nantucket Current, found the beams with his 8-year-old son after a tip about possible wreckage. The discovery occurred beneath a route beachgoers had used all summer. “Given where it was and where it emerged, it means that everyone who was driving onto the beach this summer was just directly over this,” said Graziadei. He found the discovery both amusing and significant.
The Nantucket Current posted videos online showing waves crashing against the beams. Graziadei shared that his son asked about the ship and its fate. They could walk right up to the exposed wreckage, and Graziadei noted its remarkable preservation over more than a century.
State archaeologists inspected a 42-foot section of hull exposed on Miacomet Beach in 2022, likely part of the Warren Sawyer. A 15-foot-square section of the lower stern appeared nearby in February 2023, but shifting sands buried it before it could be fully documented.
Nantucket, known as one of the “graveyards of the Atlantic,” is estimated to have over 750 wrecks in surrounding waters. Last September, a dive team identified a World War I-era fishing boat wreck off the Nantucket coast. The authorities ask visitors not to disturb the newly found wreckage. Massachusetts law forbids removing or damaging underwater archaeological resources.
In 1945, the Inquirer and Mirror newspaper published an account of the Warren Sawyer shipwreck: “Patrolman Eugene Clisby spotted the schooner’s lights off Miacomet Rip and hurried to alert others. The raging surf enveloped the craft. Capt. Veeder shot a line over the jib-stay, but the crew was too cold to secure it. Patrolman Williams, during calm seas, swung a line over the ship’s bow. The sailors secured the line, fastened a hawser, and rigged a breeches buoy. Despite the tumultuous seas, experienced life savers worked tirelessly and by the morning of December 23rd, all crew members were safely on the beach.”