In the summer of 1916, New Jersey experienced a heatwave of unusually high temperatures. This was before the time of air conditioners and people flocked to the Jersey shore in large numbers for relief from the sweltering weather. The temperature was not the only unusual occurrence that summer: During the course of twelve horrifying days, unbeknownst to the unsuspecting citizens of New Jersey, there would be a series of brutal shark attacks that would leave four dead and one severely injured.
The terror began the first of July when 23-year-old vacationer Charles Van Sant went swimming at a New Jersey beach. He was less than fifty feet from the shore when other swimmers noticed a strange sight: a large, dark figure shadowing the unknowing Van Sant. Within seconds, he was violently pulled under the surface just before a dark red pool of blood emerged. Onlooker and former Olympic swimmer Alexander Ott quickly rushed out to see in hopes of saving Van Sant. Upon reaching the site of the attack, he saw triangular dorsal fin swimming away from the area. Ott pulled Van Sant’s body to shore, but unfortunately it was too late. His lower extremities were horribly mangled and he died of blood loss. Although Van Sant’s death made newspaper headlines, there was no panic among New Jersey citizens. A majority of the townspeople thought Van Sant’s death to be the result of an unfortunate boating accident; a shark attack was the farthest cause from most people’s minds. That would soon change.
July 4th thankfully came and went without any incidents. Two days later, 27-year old bellboy Charles Bruder went for a leisurely swim on his day off from work at the Essex and Sussex Hotel. Minutes later, a woman on shore spotted Bruder amidst a dark cloud of red. At first she thought he was in a red canoe, but she quickly realized that the poor man was in a pool of his own blood. Lifeguards rushed to Bruder in a rescue boat. They were shocked and dismayed upon pulling him from the water, to discover that there was close to nothing left of his lower half. Seconds before dying on the rescue boat, Bruder identified a shark as his killer.
Resort and business owners along the shore desperately clung to the faint hope that the recent deaths were not the result of shark attacks. Many of them believed the deaths to be caused by boating accidents. This during World War I, which caused many to blame the killings on misguided German submarines. Their hopes were shattered when Surgeon General Colonel William Gray Schauffer confirmed that Charles Bruder’s death was caused by a shark attack. Authorities began closing off sections of the water with metal nets in an effort to keep the shark away from the beaches. Armed men patrolled the waters in boats. People believed that the water was safe and resumed their beach activities.
On July 12th, Captain Thomas Cottrell stepped outside the bait shop that he owned for a break. Upon gazing down, he noticed a terrifying sight: a large shark swimming up the Matawan Creek. The captain promptly phoned Keyport to warn them of the shark heading their way. He then ran down the town streets, warning all he saw to stay out of the water. Most of the townsfolk brushed off the captain’s warnings as nothing more than the ravings of a hysteric.
Approximately a mile and a half from the spot where Captain Cottrell first spotted the shark, 12-year old Lester Stillwell and his friends went for a swim in the creek. Young Charles Van Brunt was the first to spot the shark as it forcefully pulled Stillwell under the water. The boys fled the creek, screaming and hollering for help. Many of the townspeople rushed to the creek in hopes of saving the poor young boy. Among them were Watson Stanley Fisher, a tailor and dry cleaning shop owner, and his two friends: George Burlew and Arthur Smith. Captain Cottrell patrolled the creek in a motorboat as Fisher and his friends alternately dove into the water in search of Lester. Two decades later George Burlew would recall how he and friends stretched a net across the creek to prevent the tide from carrying the boy’s body. The thought that while doing so they were also confining the shark to the creek had not occurred to them.
As the three searched for Lester, Smith felt something rough brush up against his midsection. A shark’s skin is covered with dermal denticles, which make it extremely rough in texture. Smith’s skin was badly scraped and began bleeding. Soon after, Fisher was pulled beneath the surface. His friends watched in horror as he kicked and fought against the shark. Eventually, the shark loosened his grasp on Fisher and swam away. A motorboat soon reached Fisher and he was pulled aboard. He was taken to land where he was examined by local physician, Dr. Reynolds. There was little that Reynolds could do on site, so Fisher was taken to a local railroad station for immediate transport to Memorial Hospital. Stanley died from blood loss before he made it to an operating room. Prior to his death, Fisher told Reynolds that he had just found the body of Lester Stillwell before the shark attacked him.
On that same day, four teenage boys went swimming in Matawan Creek. After approximately fifteen minutes of frolicking in the water, they were spotted by someone on shore who urged them to exit the water. They promptly complied. The last among them was 14-year old Joseph Dunn who was pulled under the water by his right leg before he could leave. His friends grabbed ahold of him and desperately pulled in an attempt to save him. They were successful in freeing Dunn, but he was not without injury. The shark had caused severe damage to the boy’s right leg. He was sent to St. Peter’s Hospital where he was operated on by a skilled surgeon who managed against all odds to save the boy’s leg. Two months later, Dunn was released from the hospital and had use of both of his legs.
Two days after his death, Lester Stillwell’s body was spotted by two railroad workers. It surfaced approximately 250 yards upstream of the site of his attack. Funeral services were held for Lester Stillwell and Watson Stanley Fisher on July 15th. Both were laid to rest at Rose Hill Cemetery.
Several days later, Captain Cottrell captured and killed a large shark, which he displayed at his shop and charged over 3,000 eager spectators to view. Many experts doubt that the shark caught by Cottrell was the same one responsible for the recent attacks. Four days prior, Michael Schleisser captured a 7.5 foot long, 325 lb Great White (Carcharodon carcharias). Upon dissection, the digestive tract of the Great White revealed human flesh and bone. It was naturally assumed that this shark was the culprit of the attacks, but there is doubt to this day whether or not that is true. The people of New Jersey were eager to put the terror recent events behind them. As a result, they may have falsely credited the Great White as the perpetrator of the attacks. Great Whites are not at all common in Jersey waters and are not known to enter fresh and brackish water. Since three of the attacks occurred in a creek, the shark responsible would have to be capable of surviving in an environment with a low-mid level of saline concentration. Although still rare, the Bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) is more common to Jersey waters than the Great White. Bull sharks are also known to survive in fresh and brackish waters. They have special anatomical features that allow them to withstand multiple salinity levels, including: a gland located near the tail to retain salt and specialized kidneys to recycle and reuse salt that is already present in the body. The presence of a Great White in a semi-saline creek would be highly unlikely.
Some believe that more than one shark was responsible for the attacks. Analysis of the victims’ wounds revealed three distinctly different bit radiuses, which would imply that three different sharks were to blame. Some experts feel that a Great White was responsible for the attacks that occurred in the open sea and a Bull shark was the culprit in the creek attacks. Others contest that a Bull shark committed all of the attacks and the presence of human remains in the Great White was the circumstantial result of scavenging. There is still no indisputable knowledge as to what shark or sharks were responsible for the gruesome attacks that summer.
*For those interested, I strongly recommend the film “Twelve Days of Terror,” It is stunningly accurate and very well made. There is also an intriguing book by the same title written by Richard G. Fernicola.
