In the sweltering summer of 1916, the idyllic beaches of New Jersey became a stage for a chilling nightmare. Over twelve harrowing days in July, four people were brutally killed, and a teenage boy was gravely injured in a series of shark attacks that shattered the tranquility of the Jersey Shore. These gruesome events not only claimed lives but also etched the image of sharks as ferocious “man-eaters” into the public consciousness, a stigma that persists to this day.
A False Sense of Safety
Before the summer of 1916, sharks were largely dismissed as harmless by scientists and the public alike. Experts viewed them as oversized, docile fish, unlikely to pose a threat to humans. A decade earlier, millionaire Hermann Oelrichs had been so confident in their benign nature that he swam alongside one in 1891 and offered a $500 reward for proof of a shark attacking a human—a prize that remained unclaimed at his death in 1906. This prevailing skepticism set the stage for the tragedy that would soon unfold.
The summer of 1916 was unusually brutal. Scorching heat drove hordes of vacationers from New York City, where a polio epidemic raged, to the cooling waters of the Jersey Shore. Unbeknownst to them, the unusually warm ocean temperatures that year lured predatory sharks northward, setting the scene for a deadly encounter.
The First Strike: Charles Vansant
On July 1, 1916, 25-year-old Charles Vansant, vacationing with his family in Beach Haven, decided to take an evening swim before dinner. As he playfully called to a dog on the shore, his shouts turned to screams of agony. A shark attacked with savage force, stripping the flesh from his right thigh and exposing the bone from hip to knee. A lifeguard and a bystander heroically pulled him from the water, but Vansant bled to death on the manager’s desk at the Engleside Hotel before help could arrive.
Despite the horrific nature of the attack, local officials downplayed the incident, assuring the public that the beaches remained safe. Fishermen’s reports of shark sightings were dismissed, and for a fleeting moment, it seemed the tragedy might be a one-off anomaly. But the terror was only beginning.
The Second Victim: Charles Bruder
Five days later, on July 6, the horror escalated 45 miles north in Spring Lake. Charles Bruder, a 27-year-old bellhop at the Essex and Sussex Hotel, was swimming far from shore when a shark struck. The New York Times described the scene: the water turned crimson as Bruder’s screams pierced the air. Women on the beach fainted as lifeguards dragged him into a boat, his left leg severed above the knee and his right leg mangled below it. He succumbed to his injuries before reaching the shore.
Panic gripped the Jersey Shore. Vacationers canceled bookings, and hotels and businesses watched millions in revenue vanish as fear kept tourists away. Some resorts installed wire mesh nets to protect swimmers, but the damage was done. The second attack confirmed a predator was stalking the coast, yet some officials clung to denial, with one newspaper absurdly attributing the deaths to sea turtles.
Dr. William G. Schauffler, a respected New Jersey physician, cut through the skepticism, declaring unequivocally that a “man-eating shark” was responsible. His voice, however, was drowned out by a chorus of disbelief—until the terror reached a horrifying crescendo.
The Matawan Creek Massacre
On July 12, 1916, the attacks took a shocking turn, striking 11 miles inland in the muddy waters of Matawan Creek, a place where no one imagined a shark could venture. That morning, Captain Thomas Cottrell spotted a menacing shape gliding under a drawbridge. He raced through Matawan, warning residents of the danger, but his cries were met with laughter and disbelief. The townsfolk couldn’t fathom a “man-eating” shark invading their quiet creek.
Undeterred by the warnings, 11-year-old Lester Stillwell and his friends headed to Wyckoff Dock to swim and escape the oppressive heat. As they floated in the creek, a shark lunged, seizing Lester and dragging him beneath the bloodied waters. His friends’ screams brought the town running. Stanley Fisher, a 24-year-old local, dove into the creek to recover Lester’s body. Moments later, the shark attacked again, tearing into Fisher’s leg. He died in the hospital that evening.
Just 30 minutes later and half a mile upstream, 14-year-old Joseph Dunn became the shark’s final target. As he climbed a ladder to safety, the creature clamped onto his leg. “I felt my leg going down the shark’s throat,” he later recounted. His brother and friends fought desperately, prying him from the jaws of death. Miraculously, Joseph survived, though his leg was severely mangled—the sole survivor of the 1916 attacks.
The Aftermath: A Nation in Hysteria
The Matawan Creek attacks ignited nationwide panic. President Woodrow Wilson convened his Cabinet to address the crisis, pledging federal aid to hunt down the “ferocious man-eating sharks.” Fishermen armed with rifles, harpoons, and axes took to the seas, using sheep guts to lure their prey. New Jersey’s governor offered bounties, fueling what would become the largest animal hunt in history.
On July 14, Michael Schleisser caught a 325-pound, seven-and-a-half-foot shark in Raritan Bay near Matawan Creek. When its stomach was opened, human bones and flesh spilled out, identified at the time as belonging to a young great white. Whether this was the “Jersey man-eater” responsible for all five attacks remains uncertain. Modern experts speculate it may have been a bull shark, known for venturing inland, possibly sick or injured and driven by hunger.
A Lasting Legacy of Fear
The 1916 shark attacks left an indelible mark. The terror inspired Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel Jaws, which, along with its blockbuster film adaptation, cemented sharks as bloodthirsty killers in the public imagination. Marine biologists have since spent decades debunking this myth, emphasizing that sharks rarely target humans and that the 1916 attacks were likely the work of a single, aberrant predator—possibly a bull shark or great white—driven by unusual conditions.
The twelve days of terror in 1916 transformed the Jersey Shore from a haven of leisure into a battlefield of fear. The lives lost—Charles Vansant, Charles Bruder, Lester Stillwell, and Stanley Fisher—and the survival of Joseph Dunn serve as a haunting reminder of nature’s unpredictability. The legacy of those fateful days endures, not only in the stories of tragedy but in the enduring, often unfair, vilification of one of the ocean’s most misunderstood creatures.