The Summer the Sharks Came: Beach Haven and the 1916 Jersey Shore Attacks
- dthholland
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
At the dawn of the 20th century, Beach Haven had the feel of a seaside postcard come to life. Situated at the southern tip of Long Beach Island, New Jersey, this idyllic resort town was the embodiment of genteel Atlantic coast holidaying. With its gingerbread-trimmed Victorian homes, salt-tinged breezes, and genteel inns like the Engleside Hotel, it had long been favoured by families from Philadelphia and New York. The town prided itself on its tranquillity, far removed from the bacchanalian bustle of nearby Atlantic City, just twenty miles to the south.
By 1916, Beach Haven was experiencing something of a golden age. Tourism was flourishing, helped along by efficient railway lines, the increasing popularity of leisure travel among America’s burgeoning middle class, and the introduction of new amenities, such as shaded boardwalks and outdoor bandstands. That summer, in an effort to make the beach experience more comfortable during one of the hottest seasons on record, over two hundred trees were planted throughout the town. A newly introduced express train from Philadelphia made the journey in under two hours, shortening the distance—both literally and psychologically—between the clamour of city life and the serenity of the sea.
But that summer would be remembered not for sea breezes or lemonade socials, but for blood in the water.
A Stockbroker’s Swim Turns Tragic
Charles Vansant had no reason to suspect danger when he arrived in Beach Haven on 1 July 1916. The 25-year-old stockbroker came from a well-to-do Philadelphia family and was staying with his parents at the Engleside Hotel, a stately wooden structure perched near the shore. Eager to cool off, Vansant wasted no time changing into his swimming attire and plunging into the Atlantic. The sun was just beginning to lower on the horizon, painting the water gold as he called out to a retriever playing near the surf.
Moments later, observers on the sand began to shout. They had spotted something in the water—dark, fast-moving, with a dorsal fin slicing through the waves. Vansant, oblivious to the warnings, continued calling the dog.
Suddenly, he screamed. Blood billowed into the sea around him. A lifeguard and another swimmer dashed into the surf and dragged him to shore. His thigh had been bitten clean to the bone. Some witnesses insisted the shark was still attached to him as he was pulled in, only letting go when its belly hit the shallows.
Vansant bled to death in the hotel’s lobby, his body laid out on a dining table as horrified guests looked on. It was the first recorded fatal shark attack in the history of the East Coast. Yet, most authorities remained sceptical. James M. Meehan, the Pennsylvania Fish Commissioner, downplayed the idea that a shark was responsible. He suggested it had probably meant to attack the retriever. The Philadelphia Public Ledger quoted Meehan as saying, “There is no cause for fear.”
A Second Death—and a Turning Tide
Five days later, a second death rendered such reassurances untenable.
On 6 July, Charles Bruder, a 27-year-old Swiss bell captain at the opulent Essex & Sussex Hotel in Spring Lake, roughly 45 miles north of Beach Haven, went for a swim in the late afternoon. He was a strong swimmer and well-liked by the hotel’s guests, many of whom knew him by name.
In chest-deep water, Bruder was suddenly attacked. The shark tore into his right leg just above the knee, severing it completely. As he screamed and flailed, the shark struck again, mangling his left leg. Two lifeguards paddled out in a canoe and pulled him in, but it was too late. He bled to death en route to the shore. His last words were reported to be, “A shark bit me! Bit my legs off!”
The hotel’s wealthy clientele looked on in horror. Several women fainted; others retched. The illusion of safety at the beach was shattered. Now there was no question—something was hunting in the waters of the Jersey Shore.
In response, resorts began installing protective netting and dispatching patrol boats to search for sharks. Local mayors held emergency meetings. One town considered constructing a steel barrier across its entire beachfront. And yet, a strange duality emerged—despite the terror, or perhaps because of it, record numbers of people returned to the beaches the following week. Fear had become spectacle.
The Creek That Ran Red
If the first two attacks were shocking, what came next defied belief.
On 12 July, 30 miles north of Spring Lake and a full 16 miles inland, eleven-year-old Lester Stillwell was playing with friends in Matawan Creek—a narrow, brackish tributary used by local children to cool off during the blistering summer.
At around 2pm, the boys noticed a large shape in the water. One felt something coarse graze his leg. Then a dark dorsal fin appeared. Before Stillwell could climb out, he was yanked underwater.
His friends ran into town, breathless and panicked. Several men, including 24-year-old Watson Stanley Fisher—a respected local businessman and former Boy Scout—rushed to the scene. Assuming Stillwell had suffered a seizure, Fisher dived into the creek to retrieve the body.
But within minutes, Fisher too was attacked. The shark tore through his thigh, severing major blood vessels. He was dragged ashore in agony and died hours later in hospital.
Incredibly, the shark struck again half an hour later, just half a mile downstream. Fourteen-year-old Joseph Dunn, visiting from New York, was bitten as he climbed a ladder from the creek. His brother and a friend managed to pull him free after a brief tug-of-war. Dunn became the sole survivor of the five attacks that July, though his recovery was long and painful.
Hysteria and the Hunt
The fact that a shark—or possibly more than one—had travelled up a freshwater creek and killed two people sparked a nationwide frenzy. The prevailing scientific wisdom at the time held that sharks could not survive in freshwater. Many ichthyologists were forced to revise their assumptions.
In Matawan, volunteers set explosives in the creek in an effort to kill the shark. The U.S. Coast Guard and local police forces joined armed civilians in combing the coastline. Fishermen pulled dozens of sharks from the water in the days that followed, some of them mutilated and displayed in the streets. Newspapers offered monetary rewards. According to The Atlanta Constitution, New York and New Jersey were “at war with the man-eaters.”
At least 50 sharks were caught along the coast that summer, but identifying the true killer proved more elusive.
The Shark That Might Have Done It
On 14 July, Michael Schleisser—a taxidermist, circus lion-tamer, and noted sportsman—caught a 7.5-foot, 324-pound (147 kg) great white shark in Raritan Bay, only a few miles from the mouth of Matawan Creek. Schleisser, using a baited hook and rod aboard a small motorboat, engaged in a dramatic struggle before subduing the animal with a broken oar.
When he dissected the shark, he found human bones and “suspicious fleshy material” in its stomach. Dr Frederic A. Lucas of the American Museum of Natural History confirmed that the remains included a left rib and parts of the lower arm—consistent with a human.
Schleisser had the shark mounted and displayed in the window of a Manhattan shop. Within days, tens of thousands gathered on Broadway to glimpse the infamous predator. Crowds spilled into the streets. Newspapers dubbed it the “man-eater of Jersey Bay”. Schleisser, sensing an opportunity, planned a world tour of the specimen—but primitive taxidermy techniques led to rapid decomposition. The shark’s jaws may have survived, briefly gracing a fish shop wall, but their current whereabouts remain unknown.
Some scientists, however, cast doubt on Schleisser’s shark. They noted inconsistencies in its size and habits, suggesting the more likely culprit was a bull shark—smaller than a great white but more aggressive, and uniquely capable of tolerating freshwater. Others speculated wildly, blaming rogue sea turtles, floating debris, or even the influence of World War I. One letter to The New York Times argued that German U-boats had disrupted shark feeding patterns by dumping corpses into the sea, creating an appetite for human flesh.
A Legacy in Fear
Whether the 1916 attacks were the work of a single shark or multiple predators remains unresolved. But their impact on the American psyche was profound and enduring.
Until that point, sharks had received little attention in the public or scientific imagination. They were exotic, rarely seen, and largely misunderstood. The attacks changed that overnight. In July 1916, Scientific American warned that even small sharks could “snap the largest human bones by a jerk of its body.” Ichthyologist Hugh McCormick Smith wrote in The Newark Star-Eagle that some sharks, far from being passive ocean-dwellers, were “the incarnation of ferocity.”
Peter Benchley, writing decades later, drew directly on the 1916 events for his novel Jaws. Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film adaptation brought those fears to a mass audience, cementing the shark—especially the great white—as a cultural symbol of primal terror.
Since 1958, over 1,100 unprovoked shark attacks have been recorded in the United States, with 37 fatalities. Globally, the average is around 80 per year, with 7 to 8 resulting in death. Statistically, lightning strikes, bee stings, and even falling vending machines pose a greater threat than sharks. But numbers mean little in the face of myth.
The summer of 1916 was an anomaly, but it rewrote the rules of human interaction with the ocean. It reminded Americans that beneath the calm surface of even the most familiar waters, danger could lurk—and that nature, however domesticated it may seem, still has teeth.
