Marine Mystery: New Jersey Woman Finds What’s Believed to Be Oldest-Ever Recorded Message in Bottle

Love and regard that people carry within themselves for others have the power to traverse centuries. In the past, people used methods like putting messages in a bottle as one of the ways of remaining connected with their beloved, in distressing times, Inky Square reported.

Recently, Amy Smyth Murphy from New Jersey, stumbled upon one such message in her stroll through the beach, and looking into the whole matter discovered that she might have laid hands on the oldest such correspondence in a bottle, ABC7 reported. 

Murphy shared that she noticed the bottle because it stood out to her, ABC7 reported. "I noticed it because the bottle was like a really nice aqua," she recalled. The discovery happened on the morning of July 3.

After picking up the bottle, Murphy went to her 14-year-old nephew Jack Smyth, and 16-year-old niece, Avery Smyth, ABC7 reported. All three decided to find the bottle's source and the story behind the message.

"We made a group chat," Jack Smyth said. "Everyone was decoding it and looking things up."

The trio recorded the process of uncorking the bottle, ABC7 reported. "As soon as we opened it my grandma's yelling, 'get it out of the house' because it smelled so bad," laughed Jack Smyth. Despite, the stench the trio managed to get the parchment out of the bottle.

The message mentioned a yacht based in Atlantic City called "The Neptune," and also had a business card for W.G.&J. Klemm Gents' Furnishing Goods in Philadelphia.

The family regularly updates their findings regarding the bottle on TikTok (@asmythco). 

Murphy who works as a greeting card designer has gone through old newspapers, Ancestry.com, and Reddit groups on old bottles to find some lead regarding the bottle, ABC7 News reported. All her research has led her to the conclusion that the bottle is from 1876.

In her opinion, this makes it the oldest message in a bottle to be recorded in history. She has informed the Guinness Book of World Records about her findings who are yet to announce if her belief is correct.

Steve Nagiewicz of Stockton University, an expert on shipwrecks, states that a bottle of those times can come up on shore after so many decades, ABC7 reported. Beach replenishment might cause the bottle to wash up on the beach shore, according to Nagiewicz.

"Getting bottles is always a treasured find and it's not that hard to do that. Especially for that time period where there were a lot of bottles made," said Nagiewicz.