Post-Sandy construction uncovers 19th-century shipwreck in New Jersey

BRICK, N.J. - Work on a coastal steel wall to protect one of the areas hardest hit by Superstorm Sandy has come to a standstill after the discovery of a 19th-century shipwreck about 25 feet underneath the sand.

Mayor John G. Ducey said workers using a specialized drill struck the relic last week. They were doing excavating work for the 3.5-mile long structure, which is intended to shield Route 35 and oceanfront homes in Mantoloking and Brick on the northern barrier island from the catastrophic impact of a future major hurricane or nor'easter comparable to the Oct. 29, 2012, disaster.

"They hit something. It broke the head on the machine," Brick Deputy Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Joe Pawlowicz told CBS New York. "They decided to replace the head. They replaced the head, and it also broke."

Experts and shipwreck historians were summoned to the scene in an attempt to identify the vessel, which is broken up into many pieces and made entirely of wood, with no iron or other metal, the mayor explained.

Experts have theorized that the ship is the Scottish brig Aysrshire, which foundered off Seaside Heights on Jan. 12, 1850, in a fierce storm with 201 English and Irish immigrants aboard. The incident is memorable because rescuers on the beach used a line-throwing gun, often referred to as a Lyle gun, to rescue the passengers, four at a time, from the wreck to the beach.

Ironically, the Ayrshire went down right in front of a live-saving station - the precursor to the U.S. Coast Guard, reports CBS News York.

However, the location of the wreck has never been identified.

If the vessel is the Aysrshire, it might eventually find its next home in a museum, Mayor Ducey said.

The Ayrshire has historical significance, because it was the first time a life boat with a metal roof and hatch was used to save about 200 people, who were coming to the New World from England and Ireland.

Only one person didn't make it.

"In the case of a near-shore disaster, you would set up a line between ship and shore. And in clothesline style, you would run this little metal cart out there, fill it with people, and then bring them back," Dan Lieb of the New Jersey Shipwreck Museum said.

As a consequence of the discovery, all work has stopped on the scene and the $23.8 million barrier is not expected to be ready by its Nov. 15 deadline, he said.

So far, more than 13,000 linear feet of steel sheet piling has been installed. The Mantoloking portion of the steel curtain was completed last month, when the last segment was finished on the beach between Brick and Mantoloking, across from Curtis Point. Three crews had been working in Brick, with the most vulnerable area of Brick's beach - adjacent to the Camp Osborn site - already protected by steel sheets.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said the wreck could be from any ship or bard. And Lieb there is a possibility that more lies beneath the sand - such as cargo or even gold.

The DEP will send an archaeologist to examine the wreckage, and determine if there is more in the sand. But the department will continue with the steel wall project, working around the site until it can determine whether the wreck has any historic value and if it should be uprooted.