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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History

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Class from how Stuff Works dot com.

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Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm editor

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Candice Keener joined my fellow editor Katy

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Lamford. Candice, Katie.

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We have some mail, and not the kind

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of mail that we like to read on the air. We have

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an actual tangible piece of mail,

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a mysterious package. It's it's

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a box, and so we opened

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this box. We were going to do it live

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with everyone listening, but we decided that since

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we didn't really know what was in it, we didn't want

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to alarm anyone with our girl ish screams

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and cries. So we opened this box

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and inside is a a jar,

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and inside the jar, we've got a

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pair of bloodied, shredded swim

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trunks for one thing, and

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a newspaper clipping looks like an obituary,

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a key chain and a copper

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tag that says www

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Dot Frenzied waters dot com that's

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attached to what I presume is an artificial

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shark tooth. And we were

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delighted. We didn't know what this was, and

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then our producer told us it's actually

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a marketing campaign from Discovery.

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So we're still excited, but it's

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it's not as written with mystery

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and intrigue as we had thought and hoped.

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No. Shark Week two thousand nine, UM

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starting on August two, I think this year

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and Shark Week, like um,

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Black Friday is a holiday that everyone

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celebrates. You just you have to get into it,

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you know, uh, with all of your heart and

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mind and enthusiasm. And so we're bringing

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a bit of a historical perspective to

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Shark Week two thousand nine. So without further

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ado, we are going to enlighten

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everyone about the

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nineteen sixteen shark tacks

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on the Jersey Shore. And if you've

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seen Jaws, it was actually based on

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this story. So go back

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to July nineteen sixteen, UM,

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starting July one actually, so getting

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ready for into Pendance Day weekend, and

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there is a heat wave going on and also

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a polio epidemic and everyone

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is heading to the seashore for the weekend. And

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you should know that beach culture was

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really starting to take off in

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this era in history. Starting

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around the mid to late eighteen hundred, people

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began flocking to the beach. For one, it

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was cheap. For another reason,

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there were different modes of transportation that

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you could take to get there. It was pretty accessible.

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You could go buy a horse and wagon train

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automobile if you were lucky enough to have one.

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You could even walk and sun

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and surf and sand were a nice

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respite from insects and smoky,

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dusty industrial cities. And

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even though you know the beach

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was somewhat appealing, there were some things that weren't

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too appealing about it. For instance, people were

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really cumbersome bathing suits, sometimes

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made of wool and other heavy fabrics that

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well, um, they didn't show

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off to but they also uh

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sort of weighted people down. Picture

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yourself swimming in a woolen dress women

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and for men it was like a large

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tank top with shorts, and so

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they would absorb water and make movement very

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difficult. And there weren't really

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lifeguards as we think of lifeguards

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today until the nineteen hundred's. Usually

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it was police officers who would stand

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in place and pretend to be lifeguards for a little

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while while people bobbed in the ocean,

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and different oceanside resorts

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would section off their areas

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of the beach with poles and rope

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and people would hold onto the ropes and floating

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water in an activity called

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Fannie dunking you too,

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like I really can't wait to hit the beach right now

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and go hang on a rope. I

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know I'm stop. And

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then in the nineteen hundreds it became even

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more popular to go to the beach, and lifeguarding

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became a specialized profession. And

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not only that, but resorts would advertise

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that they actually had lifeguards, which would draw more

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people because people thought, well, hey, it'll

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be safe to get a Fanny dunk there's a lifeguard

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there. Some even had medical pavilions

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with registered nurses to help

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care for them. So it

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was a wonderful place to be. The seaside

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and the Jersey Shore was really popular. Something

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like eleven presidents the time had

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gone to stay, Mary Todd, Lincoln went to visit

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um. President Garfield actually asked to

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go there when he was dying

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from infection. So let's imagine

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the scene. We've got the white sandy

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expanses of the Jersey Shore coastal

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beach sides like Asbury Park, Spring

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Lake, Seaside Heights, Beach

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Haven, Atlantic City. People

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are out and they're colorful woolen

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separate, bathing in the sun.

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Perhaps some striped umbrellas here and their general

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merriment, maybe even a m a

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good smelling treat or to wafting

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in the air when that mary scene

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would soon be interrupted by grizzly

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crimes of nature. Charles Epting

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van Sant was there with his family

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at Beach Haven, wh was on the south

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coast of New Jersey. He was a University of

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Pennsylvania grad. He'd just gotten a job

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at a Philadelphia brokerage firm,

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and he was a pretty popular guy. Um. He's

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part of the glee club and on the varsity

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golf team, and he came from a very old family,

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and he and his father and his sisters were there

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at beach even for the weekend, and

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it was customary for young men

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to go for a pre dinner dip in the ocean,

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and Charles swam

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right out. But his dick of the ocean

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didn't exactly go as planned. He

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started crying out, and while some

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beach combers thought he was calling out for a

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dog, he was actually crying

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out for help because a shark had

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latched on to his thigh.

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And there was a lifeguard actually there at the

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time, Alexander Ott, who had been

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on the Olympic swim team for the US,

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and he swam right out, grabbed

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Van Sant and brought him in. But by the time he

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brought him in, Van Sant was missing

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most of his leg and

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he bled to death shortly thereafter. Yeah,

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the sharks bite had suffered an artery

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in his sign and so he led out pretty

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quickly. But people

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viewed this largely as an isolated instant,

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and for a few days things were calmed at the beach. And

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while today that sort of accident might scare

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people away from the beach for a very long time,

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it didn't really make that huge of an

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impact. You know, we have the local news

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at night broadcast scary stories

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and and put people on alert, but most

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of the headlines of the day were occupied with the events

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of World War One, so people

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weren't too frightened of the beach. The story was

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on page eighteen of the New York Times, it

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didn't even hit the front page. And people largely

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conceived of shark attacks as occurring in

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more southern Atlantic waters, like around

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Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina,

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so they thought it was an anomaly, this one incident.

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It wouldn't happen again, but that would not

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be the case. On July six

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at Spring Like, a Swiss bellboy

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named Charles Brewder, who worked at the six

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and Sussex Hotel, went out

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for a swim, and he

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was very well liked among staff and guests,

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and he actually sent most of his his

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wages home to his Swiss mother because

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her other son was at war. So

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he went out to a special part of the beach that had

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been cornered off for employee

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swim and all of a sudden

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he went under and there was

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a large red patch in the ocean,

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which led a woman to tell the lifeguard

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that she thought a canoe had flipped over red

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canoe, and no one had seen a red canoe,

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so for a couple of minutes there was confusion,

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and then they realized that no, it was

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blood and it was Charles Brewder,

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and the lifeguards swam out in a boat and

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brought him back, and he was missing

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both of his legs below the knee, his bones

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were severed, his foot was missing, he

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had severe wounds to his abdomen.

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And because this was such a public rescue

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and public display of how badly

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mulled his body was, people became

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much more aware and

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fright of the sharks that may be cruising along

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the Jersey shore. Spring Lake

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was a much richer, more elite little

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resort town than Beach Haven was, so this

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made even more headlines. Now people

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were starting to come to because it wasn't just attacking

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the southern Jersey shore. No, the shark

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was targeting the rich. But

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the shark knew no boundaries of class

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because whether it was the same shark or a different

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one. One actually swim inward

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toward Mattawan Creek, which was

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a tidal river area off

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the coast. This was fresh water, and

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on July twelve, a twelve year old

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boy named Lester Stillwell was attacked,

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and Lester actually had epilepsy, so when

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he went under in Mattawan

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Creek, which was only about thirty ft wide

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and forty ft deep, his friends thought

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that perhaps he'd had a seizure and he'd gone under

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the surface and they needed help getting him

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out, So they raised town and

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came back with a dry cleaner named Stanley

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Fisher. Not to be confused with the literary

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theorys Stanley Fish totally different man. So

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he starts using it a pole to poke

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around the water to try to locate his body,

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and he actually discovers that there's

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a shark lurking in the depth. So imagine

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the surprise a shark in fresh

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water. People are panicking, and one

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of the accounts I had read said that they

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had um stretched a

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net in the creek beforehand so

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the body wouldn't wash out to see not

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knowing that there was a shark, and the net

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would also keep the shark in, and that maybe

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why it stayed there and was able to

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attack Fisher instead of swimming back to the ocean.

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But Fisher dove in and he

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was attacked. The shark latched onto his

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right thigh, and another man who

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had a boat actually tried

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to fend off the shark with one of the oars,

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and he fended the shark off successfully and got

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Fisher out, but Fisher later died.

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So now we're up to four deaths

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the same summer and the same general part

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of the country. And then we go about

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half mile up from where Lester Stillwell

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was killed and we have victim

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number five, Joseph Dunn. The

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shark bit his leg, but he actually

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was rescued. At this point, Mattawan residents

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had kind of wised up to what was going on and

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he was able to be saved. He was taken

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to the hospital, and they had

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said that he would never walk again and his limbs would

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probably be amputated, but he ended up keeping both

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legs, which was great news.

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And he was the only survivor in

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that series of brutal shark attacks.

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And people were really just

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freaked out at this point, and

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even President Woodrow Wilson had had

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enough. He launched a war on the

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Sea of Terror, and he sent

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in the Navy and the Coast Guard to help

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deal with the problem. And I'm not exactly sure

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what they did if they were on the lookout for sharks swimming

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along the beach, or if they were actively trying

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to capture sharks, But people

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thought that the Great White was out

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and about riaking havoc on humanity,

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and civilians took up their own sort of

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vigilante justice and shot,

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abbed, and dynamited Mattawan

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Creek and started shooting sharks

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whenever they found them, wherever they found them. There

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were several cases of civilians

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shooting sharks in the head and then getting their pictures

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taken for the newspaper, and clearly that

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would not fly today, but to

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put it into context at the time and the fear

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that was going on, it seemed appropriate

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and a battle event and heroic.

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And there's actually an

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unbelievable part of the story, but believable

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because it is true. There's a man named Michael

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Schleisser who was a taxidermist

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and supposedly a Barnum and Bailey circus

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lion tamer, and while he

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was out fishing, he actually caught

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a shark in Raritan Bay. It was

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a great white and supposedly when

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they opened it they found human flesh

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inside about fifteen pounds.

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So it was that great white the

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terror of Mattawan Creek or

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was it something else. Scientists

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today and a theologist who look back

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and examine that summer and that behave

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you're of different types of sharks and who the likely as

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culprits would be, are are

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not exactly sure that that's the mark of a great

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white. Even Fabian Crusto,

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who you may know from his father Jacques

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Crusto, said that it was unlikely a

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great white would be in freshwater. It's

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more likely the work of a bull shark, which

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is only one of only two species that

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can go in in fresh waters. Bull

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Sharks also have really small eyes,

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much smaller than other sharks, so their vision is

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pretty limited, which is why they

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like to swim near the shore because they

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can just sort of bump into things instead.

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And in fact, their hunting method is called

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the bump and bite because they will bump into something,

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figure out what it is from the bump, and then

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bite it. So I don't believe

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you. If a bull shark butts

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into you, things are not going to go well.

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Get away quickly. And after Katrina,

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actually a bunch of bull sharks were found um

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in Lake pontcher Train and they

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live in several freshwater lakes. And

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of course the purpose of

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this shark podcast is to talk about

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a particular moment in history and to think

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about the way that beach culture

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and attitude toward the ocean

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and the ocean predators

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have changed throughout time. It's not too scare

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you off from your your beach vacation by

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all means, go invite Katie

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and me will come and we'll come with you. But

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um, it is important to know just what's out

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there, and it's it's fun to look at how people's attitudes

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have changed about bathing

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culture and well even sharks.

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Yeah, scientists at the time kept telling people there

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were no danger, and in fact, there were several who

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said that it couldn't possibly have been a shark who

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attacked these people because sharks, you

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know, don't do unprovoked attacks, and that

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perhaps it was a sea turtle instead, So

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a crazy sea turtle might not make us good a movie

13:45

as jobs, but still that was

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one theory. Well,

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now we know better, and the likes of tortoises

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and sea turtles are relegated to whimsical

13:55

animated movies and in stories about who's

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fast or a turtle or a rabbit, money's

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on the rabbit. But if you want to learn

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even more about sharks, shark attacks,

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and post Victorian beach and bathing

14:07

culture, be sure to visit the website

14:09

and how stuff works dot com.

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