The Mary Celeste
(or Marie Céleste as it is fictionally referred to by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others after him) was an American merchant brigantine famous for having been discovered on 4 December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean, unmanned and apparently abandoned (one lifeboat was missing, along with its 7 crew), although the weather was fine and her crew had been experienced and capable seamen. The Mary Celeste was in seaworthy condition and still under sail heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. She had been at sea for a month and had over six months' worth of food and water on board. Her cargo was virtually untouched and the personal belongings of passengers and crew were still in place, including valuables. The crew was never seen or heard from again. The Mary Celeste crew's disappearance is often cited as the greatest maritime mystery of all time.The fate of her crew has been the subject of much speculation. Theories range from alcoholic fumes, to underwater earthquakes, to waterspouts, to paranormal explanations involving extraterrestrial life, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), sea monsters, and the phenomenon of the Bermuda Triangle, although the Mary Celeste is not known to have sailed through the Bermuda Triangle area. The Mary Celeste is often described as the archetypal ghost ship, since she was discovered derelict without any apparent explanation, and her name has become a synonym for similar occurrences. The ship was said to be "cursed" and had a long history of disasters and catastrophes, and three captains died on the ship. The ship was destroyed in 1885 when it was intentionally wrecked off the coast of Haiti in an attempted insurance fraud.
The Mary Celeste was a 282-gross ton brigantine. She was built by the shipbuilders of Joshua Dewis in 1861 as the ship Amazon at the village of Spencer’s Island, Nova Scotia. She was the first of many large ships that were built in that small community. The Amazon was owned by a group of eight investors from Cumberland County and Kings County, Nova Scotia, led by the shipbuilder Joshua Dewis, and William Henry Bigalow, a local merchant. The Amazon was registered at the nearby Nova Scotia town of Parrsboro, the closest local port of registry.
The Amazon's first captain, Robert McLellan, son of one of the owners, contracted pneumonia nine days after taking command, and he died at the very beginning of her maiden voyage. He was the first of three captains to die aboard her. John Nutting Parker, the next captain of the Amazon, struck a fishing boat, and had to steer her back to the shipyard for repairs. At the shipyard, a fire broke out in the middle of the ship. Her first trans-Atlantic crossing was also disastrous for her next captain, after she collided with another vessel in the English Channel near Dover, England. This resulted in the dismissal of the new captain.
After this awkward beginning, the brigantine had six profitable and uneventful years under her Nova Scotian owners. She travelled to the West Indies, Central America and South America, and transported a wide range of cargoes. In 1867, the ship ran aground during a storm off Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. After she was salvaged, she was sold for $1,750 to Richard Haines of New York, and was repaired at a cost of $8,825.03. In 1868, she was transferred to the American registry, and the following year was renamed the Mary Celeste. The new owners' intention was to take her across the Atlantic and make a profit trading with the Adriatic ports.
On November 5, 1872, under command of Captain Briggs, the Mary Celeste docked on New York City’s East River and took on board a cargo of 1,701 barrels of commercial alcohol intended for fortifying Italian wines on behalf of Meissner Ackermann & Co. It was worth about $35,000; the ship and cargo together were insured for $46,000. The Mary Celeste then set sail from Staten Island for Genoa, Italy.
In addition to her captain and a crew of seven, she carried the captain's wife, who had sailed with her husband many times, and their two-year-old daughter. Thus ten people were aboard. Briggs had spent most of his life at sea, and had captained at least five ships and owned many more. The crew for this voyage included a Dane and four Germans, but all spoke fluent English, had exemplary records, and were considered experienced, trustworthy and capable seamen. The first mate and cook were Americans.
Before the Mary Celeste left New York, Captain Briggs spoke with an old friend, David Reed Morehouse, from Nova Scotia, who was captain of the Canadian merchant ship Dei Gratia, also a brigantine. Briggs, Morehouse, and their wives had dinner together on the evening of November 4. Briggs and Morehouse had served together as sailors when they were young. During the conversation, they discovered they had a similar course across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Strait of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean.
However, Morehouse was still waiting for his cargo to arrive when the Mary Celeste left port on November 5. Morehouse's cargo eventually arrived and on November 15, the Dei Gratia finally set off with 1,735 barrels (275.8 m3) of petroleum in her hold. The Dei Gratia left New York harbour seven days after the Mary Celeste (some sources say eight days later).
Sporadic bad weather had been reported in the Atlantic throughout October, although the Dei Gratia encountered none and her journey across the ocean in November was uneventful. Just short of a month after leaving port, on December 4, 1872 (some reports give December 5, owing to a lack of standard time zones in the 19th century), at approximately 13:00, the helmsman of the Dei Gratia, John Johnson, sighted a ship about five miles (8 km) off their port bow through his spyglass. The position of the Dei Gratia was approximately 38 degrees 20 minutes north and 17 degrees 15 minutes west, some 600 miles west of Portugal. Johnson's keen, experienced eyes detected almost at once that there was something strangely wrong with the other vessel. She was yawing slightly, and her sails did not look right, being slightly torn. Johnson alerted his second officer, John Wright, who looked and had the same feelings about her. They informed the captain. As they moved closer, they saw the ship was the Mary Celeste. Captain Morehouse wondered why the Mary Celeste had not already reached Italy, as she had a head start on his own ship. According to the account given by the crew of the Dei Gratia, they approached to 400 yards from the Mary Celeste and cautiously observed her for two hours. She was under sail, yet sailing erratically on a starboard tack, and slowly heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. They concluded she was drifting after seeing no one at the helm or even on deck, though the ship was flying no distress signal.
Oliver Deveau, chief mate of the Dei Gratia, boarded the Mary Celeste. He reported he did not find anyone on board, and said that "the whole ship was a thoroughly wet mess". There was only one operational pump, two apparently having been disassembled, with a lot of water between decks and three and a half feet (1.1 m) of water in the hold. However, the ship was not sinking and was still seaworthy.
All of the ship's papers were missing, except for the captain's logbook. The forehatch and the lazarette were both open, although the main hatch was sealed. The ship's clock was not functioning, and the compass was destroyed; the sextant and marine chronometer were missing. The only lifeboat on the Mary Celeste, a yawl located above the main hatch, was also missing. The peak halyard, used to hoist the main sail, had disappeared. A rope, perhaps the peak halyard, was found tied to the ship very strongly and the other end, very frayed, was trailing in the water behind the ship.
Popular stories of untouched breakfasts with still-warm cups of tea on the cabin table are untrue and most likely originated with fictionalized accounts of the incident, especially one by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. At the inquiry, Oliver Deveau stated that he saw no preparations for eating and there was nothing to eat or drink in the cabin.
Deveau returned to his ship and reported to the captain. Two men, Charles Augustus Anderson and Charles Lund, then boarded the Mary Celeste. The cargo of 1,701 barrels of alcohol Deveau reported was in good order. However, when it was eventually unloaded in Genoa, nine barrels were found to be empty.
A six-month supply of uncontaminated food and fresh water was still aboard, and the crew's personal possessions and artifacts were left untouched, making a piracy raid seem extremely unlikely. It appeared the vessel had been abandoned in a hurry. There was no sign of a struggle, or any sort of violence.
As Dei Gratia was a Canadian vessel of British registry, Captain Morehouse sailed the Dei Gratia to Gibraltar, his first mate Oliver Deveau sailed the Mary Celeste to the same destination, arriving a week-and-a-half later. An investigation was held in the Vice Admiralty Court in Gibraltar to determine the circumstances of the Mary Celeste and apportion marine salvage rights.
During the sitting of the Vice Admiralty Court, the judge praised the crew of the Dei Gratia for their courage and skill. The Attorney General of Gibraltar, Frederick Solly—Flood QC, in his role as Queen’s Proctor to the court, deemed it necessary to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate the vessel and determine the causes of its abandonment in the middle of the ocean. Copies of the several log entries were made. The inquiry lasted three months and attracted media attention worldwide.
The Mary Celeste was visited by John Austin, surveyor of shipping in Gibraltar, assisted by an inspector, John McCabe. A local diver and marine expert named Ricardo Portunato was sent to examine in detail the exterior of the hull on the behalf of the Vice Admiralty Court. Austin discovered what he believed to be a few spots of blood in the captain's cabin, an "uncleaned" ornamental cutlass in Briggs' cabin, a knife (without blood), and a deep gash on a railing that he equated with a blunt object or an axe, but he did not find such a weapon on board. Portunato believed the damage was recent.
The results of the commission of inquiry encouraged the authorities in Washington, D.C. to send instructions to all consuls and officers in their ports to report anybody matching the description of Briggs or other crew members of the Mary Celeste, or any group that could have landed sailors belonging to the Mary Celeste. Word was also sent to look for any of the items missing from the Mary Celeste, such as the two pumps or her navigation equipment. No information was reported. Locals at ports in the Azores were questioned, but none was able to provide assistance.
James Winchester considered selling the Mary Celeste after the mysterious events for which she was now notable. His mind was made up when the vessel claimed the life of his father, Henry Winchester-Vinters, who drowned in an accident in Boston, Massachusetts when she was brought back to America. Winchester sold the Mary Celeste at an enormous loss. Over the next 13 years, the ship changed hands 17 times. By then, the Mary Celeste was in very poor condition.
Her last captain and owner, identified as G. C. Parker, made no profit whatsoever and deliberately wrecked the Mary Celeste in an insurance fraud in the Caribbean Sea on January 3, 1885. She was loaded with an over-insured cargo of scrap, including boots and cat food. The plan did not work, as the ship failed to sink after being run on to Rochelais reef off the western coast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti and south of Gonave Island. Parker then tried to burn the wreck, but even after the fire the vessel remained intact, although the ship's log was destroyed along with Benjamin Briggs' prior entries in it.
Parker then filed an exorbitant insurance claim for a cargo that never existed; a subsequent insurance investigation revealed the fraud. Parker sold the salvage rights for $500, claiming that there were 125 casks of Bass ale on board, 975 barrels of herring and $1000 in cutlery among other items. None of these items were actually on board. The ship and its cargo was insured by five companies for a total of $34,000.
Captain Parker was arrested, and put on trial for barratry, or the intentional destruction of a vessel. At the time, the sentence for doing so was death, so despite the clear evidence of the fraud and of Parker's guilt, the jury deadlocked, with five of the twelve jurors refusing to send him to death. Jurors routinely refused to convict people of this crime due to the death penalty, and three years later, the law was revised so that it was no longer a capital offense.
Despite Parker's acquittal, nearly everyone indicted for actions related to the shipwreck went bust, and Captain Parker himself died three months later.
The partially burnt hulk of the Mary Celeste was deemed beyond repair and she was left to eventually slip off the shoal and sink.
Speculation and Theories about the abandonment of the ship in 1872
- Piracy
- Seaquake
- Explosion
- Mutiny
- Drunkenness
- Premature Abandonment
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