The Ada K. Damon crashed onto an Ipswich beach in 1909, its wreckage abandoned to the shifting sands.
Parts of the ship have surfaced over the years, only to be buried again. This winter, after a series of storms pummeled the coast, the remains found themselves back in the open air, to the delight of beachgoers. Some hadn’t been seen since the ship was swept ashore.
“When it became unburied in February, it was like we were getting to see an old friend who we hadn’t seen in a long time,” said Val Perini, regional education manager with The Trustees, a conservation group that owns the beach and over 30 miles of coastline in Massachusetts. “That’s what makes it fun.”
Depending on the day, beachgoers can see about 10 percent of the original 83-foot “sand schooner” on the northwest corner of Crane Beach called Steep Hill Beach, according to David Robinson, the director of the state’s Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources, which owns the ship.
“It’s a tangible link to the past,” he said.
In 2020, the combination of Hurricane Teddy and “autumnal king tides” lifted the ship off its keel and threw it down the beach.
“It lifted the two halves almost like a chicken breast,” Robinson said. “It took it about 550 feet down the beach and then redeposited it, while at the same time causing bits and pieces of it to be scattered over 18 acres.”
Different parts of the ship, including its 50-foot long, 12-foot wide hull, a pulley, and the keel, are dispersed across the beach and could be visible one day and disappear the next, Robinson said.
“The beach is a dynamic place,” Robinson said. “Every time we go out to the site, every time, we see different things or new things either uncovered or covered.”
“That’s the fun of going because it could be buried just this morning because of the last high tide and then by this evening, it could be unburied,” Perini added. “Go to the beach and see what you see.”
The two-mast ship was built in Essex in 1875. Albert Knowlton Brewster sold his York, Maine, farm and bought the ship in 1909.
Investing everything he had, Brewster transformed the ship from a “fishing schooner into a sand schooner,” Robinson said. But it soon met a tragic end.
In December 1909, Brewster headed to Boston with four or five crew members on his first trip transporting sand. But on Christmas Day, the ship’s anchor chain snapped in half, and the unanchored ship was blown to shore by “hurricane-force winds and high seas,” Robinson said.
“He lost everything,” Robinson said.
But for beachgoers today, the wreckage is a fascinating find. The broken anchor chain is still visible on the beach, and ceramics, the stem of a clay pipe, and a jug that might have been used to hold “spirits the crew was enjoying” have all been discovered in the sand, Perini and Robinson said.
Robinson has even written a sea shanty in the ship’s honor (Many of the original shanties are “too salty for children ages five to 12,” he noted).
“We wish weeee werrrre, Southbounnnnnd with sannnnnd for Bossssston,” one verse goes.
The wreckage has attracted interest since the beginning, Perini said. The Crane family, who bought the beach in the early 1900s, invited Ipswich residents to a picnic in 1911 to enjoy the beach and explore the wreckage, a tradition that continues today with the children of Ipswich, Perini said.
“People who have lived in this area have known it for decades,” she said.
Intense storms and powerful “king tides” have increased erosion on this section of the beach, Robinson said.
Perini said the erosion over the past five years has been “unprecedented.”
“There’s the seasonal patterns, and then there are long-term changes,” Robinson said. “As sea level rises, it creates different dynamics along the coast that change the shape of the shorelines. And the shoreline, generally, is migrating landward.”
Fortunately, the shipwreck draws attention to the change, Perini said. Perini shows families and children the wreckage through the Shipwreck Scholars program, and hosts a summer camp at the beach. Robinson gives lectures and leads adults on hikes in the Marine Archaeology and Sunset Hike program.
“People care about this resource and then they’re more invested in these issues, and more likely to care and take action,” she said.
For now, the wreckage will stay on Steep Hill Beach, since it would take a “huge commitment” to transport and conserve the pieces in a separate location, Robinson said.
“We need to treat Ada K. Damon like the fragile elder that it is, and treat it with respect and kindness and gentleness,” Robinson said.
Ava Berger can be reached at ava.berger@globe.com. Follow her @Ava_Berger_.