New England’s Best Shipwreck Pendant – Howard W. Middleton

Howard W. Middleton

New England’s Best Shipwreck Pendant

A billion barnacles, 894 tons of coal, 86,000 tides. Starfish clinging beneath the ribs. Moon snails sleeping in the sand. Sand dollars washing ashore. New England’s best and most accessible shipwreck is the Howard W. Middleton.

August 11, 1897, the Howard W. Middleton, on its way from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine with its cargo of 894 tons of winter coal, became lost in the thick of fog, struck a reef, and washed ashore at Higgins Beach, Scarborough, Maine, where it remains today as the best, most visible, most accessible, shipwreck in all of New England. It can be explored twice a day, on the retreating tide.

What We Found

My grandfather bought the last cottage on the beach 75 years ago, the cottage closest to the shipwreck. We found a piece of the old ship washed ashore, white oak they say, beautifully patterned wood. We built a bracelet & pendant around it.