Shark Week: Researchers Say Fatal 1640 Maryland Attack Possesses Deeper Catholic Context
A Maryland colonist, in an effort to beat the heat of a hot summer day in 1640, waded into the cooling waters of St. Mary’s River for an afternoon swim, oblivious to the presence of a lethal predator lurking nearby.
“Scarcely had he touched the water” when a “huge fish” seized him, biting off “a large portion” of the man’s thigh, according to a contemporary account. He died from his wounds soon after.
As shark researchers, we’ve taken a keen interest in this little-known episode, originally chronicled in Latin by one of Maryland’s earliest and most respected Jesuit missionaries.
After carefully analyzing his account, we now believe it may well document the earliest recorded case of an unprovoked fatal shark attack of a recreational swimmer in North America.
Why share our findings with the Register? It’s “Shark Week,” for one thing. But more importantly, the story has a decidedly Catholic dimension. In fact, it was Richard’s knowledge of the Catholic faith that helped us unlock key clues we found in the historic record.
The Catholic context includes the victim: an indentured servant in St. Mary’s City, an early 17th-century English settlement of Catholic and Protestant colonists and Maryland’s first capital.
A year before, the unnamed man had converted to the Catholic faith, but whatever affection he might have had for the Catholic Church soon gave way to contempt and public mockery. We’re told he went so far as to grind up and smoke his “prayer beads,” likely made of dried fruits, berries or nuts.
We know these details thanks to a reputable Catholic source: Father Thomas Copley, an English Jesuit from a noble recusant Catholic family tasked with writing an annual letter to his superiors in Rome updating them on efforts to spread the faith in the new colony.
Finally, the date of the attack has special Catholic significance: We feel confident it took place on the Aug. 15 Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The tragic irony of the irreverent servant’s death happening on that date, when the Jesuits traditionally blessed the local waters, would not have been lost on the Catholics of Copley’s day.
