2. The 1916 Shark Attacks
On the night of July 1, 1916, 25-year-old Charles Vansant was swimming on a beach in the resort town of Beach Haven, Pennsylvania, when he was attacked by a Great White shark. An incredibly brave lifeguard swam out to save Vansant and pulled him ashore. Vansant ended up bleeding to death a short time later on the desk at a nearby hotel.
Five days later, there was another shark attack. It happened 45 miles north of Beach Haven, in Spring Lake, New Jersey. 27-year-old Charles Bruder was bitten in the abdomen, and his legs were bitten off. He bled to death on the shore.
Then the shark did something rather unusual: He moved into Matawan Creek, near Keyport, New Jersey, which is 30 miles away from Spring Lake. After all, who intentionally moves to New Jersey? Just kidding. It’s actually the creek thing that was unusual.
A captain saw the shark in the creek, but the townspeople dismissed his claims. On July 12, a group of boys came running down Main Street, screaming that there was a shark in the creek. It had attacked 11-year-old Lester Stilwell. The townspeople didn’t believe their story and thought that Lester, who had epilepsy, had a seizure and drowned. So people went into the creek to search for him.
His body was found, and as it was being brought ashore by 24-year-old Watson Stanley Fisher, Fisher was attacked by the Great White while the horrified townspeople watched on. He bled to death in the hospital.
The final victim was the only one to survive. Half an hour after Fisher was attacked, 14-year-old Joseph Dunn was bitten on the right leg. Luckily, his mother and brother were able to pull him to safety and he made a full recovery.
After killing four people and injuring a fifth, all in the span of two weeks, people along the east coast were panicked. President Woodrow Wilson even heard about it and called a cabinet meeting. They ordered that should money be used to “drive away all the ferocious man-eating sharks which have been making prey of bathers.”
Two men found the shark a few miles away from the creek in Raritan Bay. It was a 7.5 foot long male juvenile shark. After the shark nearly sank the boat, they were able to kill it with a broken oar. When they cut open his stomach, they found human remains.
Amazingly, before the attacks, scientists didn’t think that sharks attacked people. Of course, there were stories of sharks attacking people, including other attacks on this list, but scientists merely wrote these off as fisherman’s tales. The 1916 shark attacks forever changed that view, and of course, we know that sharks can and will bite humans.
Also, the story of a shark attacking people off the coast of New Jersey may sound familiar to the many people who have seen Jaws. The attacks are often credited with inspiring the novel and the film. However, Peter Benchley, who wrote the novel, says that Jaws wasn’t inspired by the shark attacks of 1916. He just happened to write a book about a series of shark attacks in New Jersey that led to a shark hunt that nearly sunk the boat of the hunters. Quite the coincidence, huh?
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