Lavallette Wreck

The '�Lavallette Wreck'� ideally illustrates the difficulty sometimes encountered in identifying old wrecks. The low wooden wreck is 100 yards off the beach and sits in 12 feet of water over a mud bottom and is probably the remnants of an eighteenth or nineteenth century sailing ship. In the past many vessels have been recorded as being lost at a place then known as '�Squan'�, '�Squam'�, '�Squam Beach'�, or any number of variations of those words. The place is now called Manasquan and it is a small town to the north of the Manasquan inlet which has about a mile of beach. In 1685 the entire area from Manasquan south (including Point Pleasant, Bayhead, Lavallette, Seaside Heights, and Island Beach State Park, to name a few) was called Squan Beach. As late as 1878, Lavallette itself was known as '�Squan Beach'� so a wreck reported at '�Squam Beach'� could have been anywhere between Sea Girt and Barnegat inlet. Initially these isolated barrier islands were just about uninhabited with only a few roads, landmarks or witnesses to any event. For these reasons, old reports can be considered to be relatively unreliable. Other aspects to take into consideration when accounting for the difficulty in identifying and finding old shipwrecks include the frequency of lost records, improper reporting, shifting sands and the strength of the ocean surf. There are various possibilities as to the real identity of the '�Lavallette Wreck'� but none of these have been verified.