After violently colliding with a commercial schooner in 1860, the USCS Robert J. Walker sank in less than 85 feet of water southeast of Absecon Inlet, New Jersey. Declared the deadliest disaster in NOAA’s history, 20 sailors perished that day.

Built in 1847, the Walker was one of the U.S. government’s first iron-hulled side-wheel steamers, and was at work conducting surveys for the U.S. Coast Survey, NOAA’s oldest predecessor organization. Despite being half-buried and coated in marine life, it was lost to history until it was positively identified last summer.

Research on the Walker continued this summer as a group at New Jersey’s Richard Stockton College mapped the site with sonar technology and a remotely operated vehicle.

Working in conjunction with NOAA, the project plans “to investigate and disseminate information for the conservation and wise use of this newly designated underwater historic site,” said RSC professor Dr. Peter Straub. Straub and marine biology students Walter Poff, 25, Chelsea Shields, 19, and Jamie Taylor, 23, will provide the first detailed look at the Walker.

“A shipwreck is like a piece of history that’s stopped in time,” said Shields. “All that is left to tell [the lost sailors’] story is the wreck.”

For the researchers, this project hits close to home.

“I can’t even explain how much I learned,” said Taylor. “There’s definitely an emotional connection. The men who died were doing the same things students and [project members do].”