A greeting card designer stumbled upon what is believed to be the world’s oldest message in a bottle while walking along the Jersey shore.
Amy Smyth Murphy, 49, was walking along a beach at Corson’s State Inlet in Ocean City when she spotted an unusual-looking bottle at the water’s edge.
“I thought, ‘This is very peculiar. What is this?'” Smyth Murphy said. Philadelphia inquirer.
After some research, he was able to determine that the message in the bottle likely dates back to 1876, which would make it the oldest artifact of its kind.
Most intriguing was a barely legible handwritten note found inside the bottle that read: ‘Yacht Neptune off Atlantic City, New Jersey. August 6, 1976.’
A greeting card designer stumbled upon what is believed to be the world’s oldest message in a bottle while walking along the Jersey shore.
Based on his research, Smyth Murphy now believes the “76” is a reference to the year 1876, when the note is believed to have been written.
“It took us, I would say, maybe 48 hours to really understand what it was saying, but if you look at it long enough, you can start to see it,” Smyth Murphy explained.
He began his investigations by looking at the bottle itself, which bears the Barr & Brother Philadelphia brand name.
According to the valuation site Worthpoint, the company probably produced the glassware between 1870 and 1900.
The next task was to carefully remove the note that was rolled up inside the bottle, which her niece did using a corkscrew and some tweezers.
Inside, Smyth Murphy found a business card from a well-known Philadelphia instrument company called WG & J Klemm dating back to the 19th century.
The bottle was discovered at the water’s edge on a beach at Corson’s State Inlet in Ocean City.
Amy Smyth Murphy, 49, who found the bottle, has carried out extensive research suggesting it dates back to 1876.
On the reverse was a handwritten note referring to the Neptune Yacht.
“I would love to know who was sailing on the ship, who the captain was, where it was going, whether it was for pleasure, whether it was for business, etc.,” Smyth Murphy said.
He discovered an 1874 Philadelphia Inquirer article that names Captain Samuel Gale of Atlantic City, who “had just built a splendid yacht, which he christened ‘Neptune,’ after the Neptune Club of this city.”
Neptune was a popular pleasure cruiser that attracted dozens of day-trippers thanks to Gale’s charismatic personality, according to her obituary.
“We’re getting closer to finding out who wrote the note and who threw the bottle into the ocean,” Smyth Murphy said in a TikTok.
But the puzzle is not over yet for her and Smyth Murphy has contacted the Guinness Book of World Records to try and verify her theory.
Smyth Murphy and his family managed to remove the note using a corkscrew and tweezers.
According to the organization, the current record for the oldest message in a bottle dates back to June 12, 1886, when it was left adrift by German captains aboard the Barque Paula and found on Wedge Island, Australia, in 2018.
“From the reactions I’ve had so far, everyone really likes the mystery surrounding it,” Smyth Murphy said.
‘Let’s see how much information we can glean from this bottle and its history and how it connects to Philadelphia and South Jersey.’