Man finds decades-old message inside bottle

CARRIERE, Miss. (WLOX/Gray News) - A south Mississippi man has made a rare discovery while fishing on the Pearl River, and it dates back to 1983.

Jeremy Weir, who is a retired school principal, has collected antiques as a hobby on his boating trips for as long as he can remember.

However, never in a million years did he expect to run across a bottle with a message inside dating back four decades.

“I was out on the river, and one of my hobbies is collecting driftwood and occasionally old bottles,” Weir explained. “If I see an interesting bottle out on the Pearl, I’ll pick them up, check them out and occasionally bring them home.”

On Monday, Jeremy headed north on the Pearl River toward Bogalusa, approximately two miles out. That’s when he came across the mysterious bottle.

“Got the bottle home and looked at it, kind of washed the mud off of it and there was something in it,” he said. “I looked at it initially, and I thought it was trash. I noticed there was a little plastic baggy; it looked like maybe a calendar out of somebody’s planner, and it was dated 1983.”

Weir said the bottle instantly caught his attention out on the water. He said the bottle had a more distinct shape as opposed to others he’s collected.

“Well, it was an odd bottle. It has a stopper on it with a metal clamp holding it on, kind of an antique sort of clamp,” he said.

Weir worked with his daughter who is a lawyer to contact the sender named David. David was just 3 years old when the letter was penned by a relative on his behalf.

“I said, ‘Is this David?’ He said, ‘Yes, it is.’ ‘I have something that belongs to you.’ I said I know this sounds crazy, but I found a bottle in the Pearl River today that has your name and phone number, and that you live in Jackson, Mississippi. He’s like, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, I’m going to put you on the speakerphone; I want my wife to hear this. Would you mind repeating?’ I repeated and read the letter to him, and they were just blown away,” Weir said.

Weir is now making arrangements to meet David in Jackson to return his childhood letter within the next few weeks.

Copyright 2023 WLOX via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.