The bottle appears to contain a business card and a handwritten note from 1876. If that date is accurate, it would make this discovery 10 years older than the current world record holder for oldest message in a bottle.
Amy Smyth MurphyThe message in a bottle found by Amy Smyth Murphy.
Over the Fourth of July weekend, a New Jersey woman discovered a bottle washed ashore at Corson’s Inlet, sealed with a cork and with papers inside. She took the bottle back to her beach house to see what the message read, only to be hit with an intense odor as soon as she uncorked it, described as “the bay smell times one million.”
Moving past the smell, she pulled the paper from inside. What she found appeared to be a business card and a handwritten note from 1876. If that date can be confirmed, this would be the oldest message in a bottle ever found.
The Discovery Of The World’s Oldest Message In A Bottle
Amy Smyth MurphyThe message found inside the bottle, which references a yacht called the Neptune.
Amy Smyth Murphy, 49, was walking along the beaches of Corson’s Inlet State Park in New Jersey one morning in early July when she found the green-colored bottle and noticed several papers inside. Once she opened it up, her excitement grew.
Back in 2018, an Australian couple, Tonya and Kym Illman, had found a message in a bottle that dated back to 1886. The gin bottle, which was thrown overboard by the captain of the German ship Paula, currently holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest message in a bottle ever found.
Should it be found that Smyth Murphy’s bottle was tossed out to sea a full decade earlier, however, it would make her discovery the new record holder.
Smyth Murphy has since applied to have the bottle vetted by Guinness World Records, though that process could potentially take months.
Amy Smyth MurphyThe bottle as it looked when Amy Smyth Murphy found it.
“I really like the mystery. I love the research,” Smyth Murphy told NJ Advance Media.
The first thing Smyth Murphy noticed after opening the bottle, however, was the smell.
“The smell that came out of it was unbelievable,” she said. It was like “the bay smell times one million. We were not prepared for that.”
Amy Smyth MurphyA yacht captained by Samuel Gale.
While waiting to hear back from Guinness, Smyth Murphy and her family have become engrossed with trying to learn more about the bottle’s origins — and her early research has turned up some interesting results.
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What Message Did The Bottle Contain?
@asmythco I found a message in a bottle! #messageinabottle #corsonsinlet #oceancity #asmythco
The bottle itself was embossed with the name “Barr & Brother Philadelphia,” a company that operated in Philadelphia between the 1860s and 1870s. One piece of paper inside was a business card featuring the names “W.G. & J. Klemm” — likely a reference to a pair of brothers, William and John Klemm. According to historical records, the Klemm brothers operated a gentlemen’s furnishing goods company until it closed in 1881.
The second piece of paper, a handwritten note, seems to refer to a late-1800s yacht known as Neptune. Archives from The Philadelphia Inquirer note that the Neptune was docked in Atlantic City in the late 1800s, and that the yacht’s captain was Samuel Gale.
Smyth Murphy found that Gale may have lived in Atlantic City around that same time.
Amy Smyth MurphySamuel Gale’s property in Atlantic City.
“On a site dedicated to old maps, there was a map of Atlantic City from 1877, which was presumably drawn in 1876,” Smyth Murphy wrote on her blog. “The town was so sparsely populated that the names of the residents were listed rather than addresses. Unbelievably, S. Gale was named on one of the properties, prompting a trip to AC so I could walk the route; Capt. Sam went to work every day.”
In another post, Smyth Murphy detailed more of Gale’s life and his time as captain of the Neptune. Based on her research, the Neptune was a pleasure yacht, and “Captain Sam” would frequently take people out on the water in it. It seems like Gale was a fairly popular figure in New Jersey during his time, as his obituary refers to him as “a leading figure in this city’s life… until in recent years failing health forbade his wonted activity.”
After reading about this fascinating discovery, read about the recent raising of the “Titanic of the Alps.” Then, read about the infamous shipwreck of the Andrea Gail.
