Maritime expert is to inspect 19th-century shipwreck timbers exposed on Nantucket beach by weekend nor'easter

From the Newshound archive · first published 29 September 2026.

Splintered wooden beams fixed with rusted iron have surfaced on Nantucket's southern shore after a potent nor'easter struck the Northeast coastline over the weekend. The Egan Maritime Institute's exhibits and collections manager will visit the site and submit a report to state underwater archaeologists in an effort to determine which vessel the remains belong to. Officials warned that no formal identification of the newly uncovered timbers has been made, although the location is close to where remnants thought to be from the Warren Sawyer were discovered in 2022.

The Warren Sawyer was a three-masted cargo schooner that ran aground on 22 December 1884, carrying 1,115 bales of cotton and 28 tons of scrap iron on a voyage from New Orleans to Boston.

Massachusetts chief archaeologist David Robinson said the GPS coordinates of the exposed timbers raise the possibility that the wreck belongs to an entirely different ship.

The weekend storm inundated communities from New Jersey to New England, cutting power to more than 100,000 customers and hastening coastal erosion across the region.