Bones found on N.J. beaches ID'd as captain of doomed 19th-century ship
Skeletal remains found on New Jersey beaches decades ago have been identified as those of a 19th-century schooner captain, thanks to the investigative efforts of college students.
The ship, the Oriental, sank in 1844. The schooner was transporting 60 tons of marble from Connecticut to Philadelphia to be used in the construction of Girard College, which still operates today. The ship likely sprung a leak, according to a news release announcing the identification of the remains, and sank off the coast of Brigantine Shoal. All five crew members aboard the ship died.
The skeletal remains, including a skull, were found on a number of South Jersey beaches between 1995 and 2013. The set of remains became known as "Scattered Man John Doe." Police efforts to identify the bones failed.
In 2023, the New Jersey State Police partnered with Ramapo College's Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center. A sample from the bones was uploaded to genetic genealogy company Intermountain Forensics, which submitted it to DNA matching sites in February 2024. Meanwhile, students at Ramapo used the profile for research.
They found ancestry matches dating back to the 1600s, including genetic relatives from Connecticut. For the next year, students continued to find ties to Connecticut, and eventually they started looking at shipwrecks off the coast of New Jersey. They came upon two articles about the sinking of the Oriental. One article named the crew members aboard at the time of the sinking and another detailed the wreck itself.
"The storm was so tremendous that no help could be given from the shore," said the article, which was published in the Boston Daily Bee in December 1844 and described an account from a Connecticut publication.
According to the article, one crew member was "decently buried" after his "corpse was thrown on the shore." No other bodies were discovered immediately after the sinking.
The circumstantial evidence and genetic ancestry led the students to believe "Scattered Man John Doe" might be the captain of the ship, Henry Goodsell. Goodsell was 29 at the time of his death, and left a wife and three children, according to the Boston Daily Bee. The New Jersey State Police collected a family reference sample from one of his great-grandchildren in March 2025.
In April 2025, the NJSP confirmed that "Scattered Man John Doe" was Goodsell. This has become one of the oldest cold case identifications using investigative genetic genealogy, Ramapo said.
"Identifying human remains is one of the most solemn and challenging responsibilities law enforcement is charged with," said Chief of County Detectives Patrick Snyder at the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office. "Law enforcement works hard knowing that behind every case is a promise: that no one will be forgotten, and that we will pursue the truth until families have the answers they deserve."
The Ramapo College IGG Center has consulted on 92 cases, Ramapo said. Two months ago, the program was credited with helping identify the remains of a woman who disappeared in 2014. In November 2024, student research led to an arrest in a decades-old cold case.
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