A message in a bottle found in the sand at Ocean City, NJ, could be the oldest ever discovered.
Amy Smyth Murphy, 49, was strolling through Corson’s Inlet State Park over the July Fourth 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.
Smyth Murphy said she believes that the bottle, which bears the words “Barr & Brother Philadelphia,” a business from the mid-1800s, was tossed into the water about 146 years ago — or 10 years before the message-holding container found in Australia in 2018 that currently holds the Guinness World Record.
TikTok / @asmythco
“It’s just so interesting to be connected to people in this way,” Smyth Murphy told the outlet.
She said she has applied to have the bottle vetted by Guinness World Records.
One of the papers inside the bottle appeared to be a business car 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, NJ, in the late 1800s and captained by Samuel Gale, according to the newspaper archives.
Gale may have lived in Atlantic City in the late 1800s, according to Smyth Murphy’s own research.
TikTok / @asmythco
“I really like the mystery. I love the research,” 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 odor as “the bay smell times 1 million.
“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 archeology 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.
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, Smyth Murphy’s family says uncovering information about where the bottle and its contents came from has been rewarding.
