As a nor’easter pounded the shores of Nantucket, in Massachusetts, on Saturday, it also uncovered a piece of history. The Warren Sawyer, a three-masted ship that was headed for Boston from New Orleans with cotton and scrap iron, wrecked on Nantucket the night of Dec. 22, 1884. Waves invigorated by a nor’easter on Saturday washed a likely remnant of the ship ashore, according to Jascin N.

Leonardo Finger, the deputy director of the Maria Mitchell Association, an organization that runs a natural-history museum on the island. The remains were a chunk of wooden beams still attached to iron fastenings. Shipwrecks near the island were not uncommon during the Warren Sawyer’s time, Ms. Leonardo Finger said in a statement.

She added that Nantucket residents were known to salvage materials from wrecks, though this find offers a rare, tangible link to the vessel’s final voyage. The discovery highlights how severe weather continues to reveal artifacts from the island’s maritime past.