In the summer of 1916, a heatwave settled over the northeastern United States, driving thousands of families to the Jersey Shore in search of relief. The beaches were crowded, the water warm, and the Atlantic seemed as safe as it had ever been. Sharks were considered all but harmless to humans, a curiosity rather than a threat. That belief collapsed in a span of twelve days when a series of attacks shocked the country, leaving four dead and one gravely injured. The events became known as the 1916 Jersey Shore Shark Attacks, a sequence so unprecedented and terrifying that they later inspired Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws and the iconic film that followed.
The first attack occurred on July 1, 1916, near Beach Haven. Charles Vansant, a young man vacationing from Philadelphia, went for a late afternoon swim while his family prepared dinner. Within minutes, witnesses heard him screaming. Lifeguards rushed into the water and pulled him back to shore, discovering deep lacerations across his leg. Despite efforts to save him, Vansant died shortly after. Newspapers treated the incident as a tragic fluke, suggesting a large fish or injured sea creature had acted unpredictably. Bathers returned to the water the next morning.
Five days later, on July 6, a bellhop named Charles Bruder was swimming off the shore of Spring Lake when he, too, began shouting for help. Lifeguards reached him to find that both his legs had been severely mutilated. Bruder died on the rescue boat. Panic settled across the region. Two fatal shark attacks in a matter of days contradicted everything the public believed about sharks. Yet many experts insisted the events were coincidences, highly unusual, but not evidence of a predator targeting humans. Beaches remained open.
The attacks that followed were even more astonishing. On July 12, miles inland from the coast, eleven-year-old Lester Stillwell was playing with friends in Matawan Creek, a tidal channel that snaked between marshland and small-town streets. As the boys splashed in the water, Stillwell suddenly vanished beneath the surface. His friends ran into town shouting that a shark had taken him. Few believed them at first, sharks in a narrow, brackish creek seemed impossible. But when townsmen formed a search party and entered the water, the shark struck again.
One of the volunteers, 24-year-old Stanley Fisher, located Stillwell’s body and attempted to retrieve it. As he lifted the boy, the shark attacked, tearing into Fisher’s leg with enough force to drag him under. He managed to reach the surface and was pulled into a boat, but he died hours later in the hospital. Witnesses described a dark shape weaving erratically through the creek’s muddy water, a predator moving with confident speed in a place no one expected it to be.
Only minutes after the attack on Fisher, and a short distance downstream, the shark struck a fourth time. Twelve-year-old Joseph Dunn was swimming with his brother when something seized his leg and pulled him toward the deeper channel. A quick-thinking group of bystanders managed to pry him free. Dunn survived, though with significant injuries. The rapid succession of attacks, three in one afternoon, sent shockwaves across the nation. For the first time in American history, people stopped entering the ocean in fear of a predator they had previously dismissed.
The aftermath saw a frenzy of attempts to identify and neutralize the threat. Boats patrolled the coast. Nets were installed. Newspapers printed warnings and lurid illustrations, fueling nationwide panic. When a large shark, believed to be a juvenile great white, was eventually caught near the mouth of Matawan Creek, its stomach reportedly contained human remains. Though the evidence was never conclusive, the capture eased public fear and marked the unofficial end of the attacks.
Scientists still debate which species was responsible. Some point to the great white shark, supported by eyewitness descriptions and the recovered remains. Others argue the culprit may have been a bull shark, which is more tolerant of freshwater and better suited to navigating shallow, inland waterways like Matawan Creek. The truth may never be known with certainty, but the behavioral anomaly, a shark killing repeatedly in a short window of time, remains one of the most unsettling aspects of the case.
The 1916 attacks marked a turning point in American understanding of the ocean. Before that summer, sharks were not widely feared. Afterward, they became symbols of unpredictable danger. When Peter Benchley wrote Jaws in 1974, he drew heavily from the events along the Jersey Shore. The idea of a lone, relentless predator targeting a community had its roots in the panic-laden newspaper accounts of 1916. Steven Spielberg’s film further cemented the story in popular culture, turning the real-life terror of that summer into one of the most iconic horror narratives of the 20th century.
More than a century later, the 1916 shark attacks remain a singular event, a brief, violent sequence that reshaped public perception of sharks and left a permanent mark on American folklore. The ocean’s mysteries often inspire awe, but in those twelve days, the Atlantic offered a reminder of nature’s unpredictability. The attacks that inspired Jaws continue to stand as one of the most chilling and studied episodes in marine history.
Sources & Further Reading:
– Contemporary newspaper coverage from the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer (1916).
– Richard Fernicola, 12 Days of Terror.
– Smithsonian and NOAA historical analyses of the 1916 attacks.
– Matawan Historical Society archival documents.
– Marine biology studies on shark behavior and species identification in brackish waterways.
(One of many stories shared by Headcount Coffee — where mystery, history, and late-night reading meet.)
