steet view, adjacent to Historic Towne of Smithville

The Powhatan was a packet ship which on April 15, 1854, at 5 p.m. went aground on the shoals of Brigantine Island during a fierce storm. The vessel broke in half and all on board perished. Forty bodies were washed ashore on the beach and buried at Rum Point, near Harrah's and Trump Marina Casinos. Other bodies were found floating in the inlet, bays and thoroughfares. Isaac and Robert Smith of Smithville put many of the bodies onto boats and took them to Smithville on the mainland for burial. The bodies were placed in Isaac's storehouse until the women of the neighborhood could make burial clothes for them. The men made rough coffins and the bodies were placed in a long trench in the old Quaker cemetery at Smithville where this marker today calls attention to the tragedy.

Original marker erected by NJ State in 1964. The 54 bodies were recovered from Brigantine Beach in 1854. No bodies were buried on Rum Point in the Absecon Inlet.