The shark mania that grips the country each summer began July 1, 1916, when a young stockbroker from Philadelphia headed into the surf at Beach Haven, New Jersey. Before then, there wasn’t much fear about attacks from the deep among the innocents at the Jersey Shore.
That all changed when Charles Vansant, a 25-year-old taking the first swim of his summer vacation, struck out into the mild surf. What unfolded over the next dozen days would leave five swimmers dead or maimed and the East Coast terrified, sparking “a war on sharks” that continues to this day.
“It was the Titanic of shark attacks,” said Richard Fernicola, a New Jersey physician and author of “Twelve Days of Terror,” an account of what became known as the Matawan Man-Eater.
Only a few people on the beach noticed Vansant increasingly frantic in the water, thinking he was calling to the dog. But by the time lifeguards carried him ashore, a crowd including his parents watched as he bled out onto the sand.
Less than a week later, a hotel worker named Charles Bruder was swimming with friends at nearby Spring Lake when he was repeatedly pulled, shrieking, under the surface as beachgoers screamed for help. When two lifeguards pulled him into their boat, his legs were both severed below the knee. He died minutes later.
Then came July 12. In the town of Matawan, 11 miles inland on the tidal currents of Matawan Creek, all was calm despite the growing disquiet at the shore. When a fishing captain named Thomas Cottrell saw a menacing form glide under a town bridge, his frantic alarm was dismissed by the local police chief. In frustration, Cottrell ran through the streets warning passers-by to avoid the water.
But he just missed crossing paths with a group of young workers from a basket factory who had been given the afternoon off for a swim. One them, an 11-year-old apprentice named Lester Stillwell, waded into the creek and had just shouted “Hey fellas, watch me float!” when his friends saw a dark form surge toward him. He gave a gurgled scream and was pulled into a crimson bloom of churning water.
A crowd gathered and a group of young men began to swim in the shallows, hoping to find a sign of the boy’s body. One of them, a tall tailor named Stanley Fisher, dove deeper than the rest. With Lester’s parents standing with the throng of onlookers, he made a final dive, staying down a long time. Finally, he broke the surface. According to some witnesses, he had the boy’s shredded hand. Others said they didn’t see him holding anything. But everyone agreed on what happened next.
Nearly the entire town was watching as Fisher, struggling to get his footing in the mud, was slammed from his right. They saw the massive shark pull him down, spin him around and chew great chunks of his flesh. They said Fisher, an athlete, fought like a wild man, punching and kicking the dark beast in a cloud of blood and water. But the shark only let go when frantic rescuers in a boat beat him with an oar. When they pulled Fisher out, little was left of his right thigh. The doctor estimated that 10 pounds of flesh been torn away.
“It was just bone,” Fernicola said.
Fisher lived about two hours. By the time he died, the shark had taken yet another victim. Joseph Dunn, a 12-year-old visitor from New York City, was swimming downstream in the creek, oblivious to the pandemonium a few miles inland. Just yards from the dock ladder he felt a rough raking along his leg and then a vicious grip on it. His brother and a friend grabbed him and pulled, feeling the shark tug the other way. But the animal released his grip and they got Dunn ashore, his leg in tatters. He alone would live.
