Message in bottle could be oldest ever, potentially taking world record from find in Australia
A message in a bottle found on an American beach could take the title of world’s oldest away from one that was found in Western Australia.
A message in a bottle found in the sand on an American beach could be the oldest ever discovered, potentially beating the current record-holder found in Australia.
Amy Smyth Murphy, 49, was strolling through Corson’s Inlet State Park in New Jersey over America’s Fourth of July holiday weekend when she discovered an antiquated green corked bottle containing what appeared to be a business card from 1876 and a handwritten note, she told NJ.com.
Ms Smyth Murphy said she believed the bottle, which bears the words “Barr & Brother Philadelphia,” a business from the mid-1800s, was tossed into the water about 146 years ago.
A message-holding bottle found in Australia in 2018 currently holds the Guinness World Record. It was discovered washed-up on a remote beach in Western Australia in 2018, 132 years after it was thrown from a German ship in the Indian Ocean in 1886.
Ms Smyth Murphy said she has applied to have her bottle vetted by Guinness World Records.
One of the papers inside the bottle appeared to be a business card for “W.G. & J. Klemm,” a pair of brothers, William and John Klemm, who ran a gentleman’s furnishing goods company in Philadelphia until 1881, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s newspaper archives.
Another paper inside the container referenced a local yacht called Neptune, which was docked in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the late 1800s and captained by Samuel Gale, according to the newspaper archives.
Mr Gale may have lived in Atlantic City in the late 1800s, according to Ms Smyth Murphy’s own research.
“I really like the mystery. I love the research,” Ms Smyth Murphy said.
She said the rare bottle also contained something else a bit more unsettling.
“The smell that came out of it was unbelievable,” she said, describing the odour as “the bay smell times one million.” She added: “We were not prepared for that.”
The discovery occurred months after a multimillion-dollar beach fill was performed in the Ocean City area, which according to experts may have caused the bottle to break free from the ocean floor.
“They dredge up things,” said Steve Nagiewicz, who teaches maritime history and marine archaeology at Stockton University in Jersey, to NJ.com.
“Some of them just get stirred up and float around the ocean, and I think that’s what happened in her case. Those ocean currents can do some amazing things,” he said.
Ms Smyth Murphy shared her adventures in uncovering what the messages inside the bottle said, posting TikTok videos of her family gently using toothpicks to pull the decaying pieces of paper out of the container.
While the woman waits to hear back about whether her discovery broke a world record, Ms Smyth Murphy’s family says uncovering information about where the bottle and its contents came from has been rewarding.
“It’s been really fun kind of doing it all together,” said John Smyth, Ms Smyth Murphy’s brother.
Guinness World Records did not return a NY Post request for comment on Sunday.
This article originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission
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