Mary Celeste
The Mary Celeste was a ship found abandoned off the coast of Portugal in 1872. What happened remains unknown.
The Mary Celeste was a 103-foot brigantine of 282 tons, under one Captain Benjamin Briggs. Originally built as the Amazon, the ship seemingly had bad luck, and due to numerous negative occurrences, she changed hands several times. She was eventually renamed to Mary Celeste.
On November 7 of 1872, the Mary Celeste picked up a cargo of American Alcohol (for fortifying wine) shipped by Meissner Ackermann & Coin in New York City and was bound for Genoa, Italy.
On December 4 (some reports give December 5th, due to a lack of standard time zones in the 1800s), 1872, the Mary Celeste was found abandoned, half way between Portugal and the Azores. The ship was discovered by the Dei Gratia, a ship that had left New York harbor only seven days after the Mary Celeste The ship seemed to be in good condition, but no one was aboard.
The sextant and chronometer were missing, suggesting the ship had been deliberately abandoned. The only lifeboat appeared to have been intentionally launched, rather than torn away. Other accounts claim the lifeboat was still on the ship. The forehatch was found open.
The cargo of 1700 barrels of alcohol were intact. A six-month supply of food and water was aboard, and three and one-half feet of water was found in the hold. All of the ship's papers except the captains logbook were missing. The last log entry was dated November 24 and placed her 100 miles west of the Azores.
Captain Briggs, all officers and crew (a total of 7) and passengers (Briggs's wife, Sarah E. Cobb and child Sophia Matilda) were never seen again.
The crew of the Dei Gratia, captained by Captain Morehouse, who knew Briggs, came across the brig, and observed her for two hours, concluding that she was drifting. They noted that there were no distress signals flying on the ship, and Oliver Deveau, the Chief Mate of the Dei Gratia led a party in a small boat to board her. He reported finding only one pump working, with a lot of water between decks. The cargo was in place, but there were no boats. The fore hatch and the lazarett hatch were both open, the clock was not functioning and the compass destroyed. He reported that "The whole ship was a thoroughly wet mess.". The crew of the Dei Gratia split into two to return the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar, where during a hearing the judge praised the crew of the Dei Gratia for their courage and skill.
The chronometer, the sextant navigation book and the ship's register and papers were missing, and, unusually, there was not a log line prepared. The last entry on the ships slate showed her as having reached the island of St Mary in the Azores on November 25th. When the cargo was eventually unloaded in Genoa, nine barrels were noted as being empty.
The fate of the crew will possibly never be known, and rumors abound. As these are pure speculation, we refer the reader to the references for these. Some cite a connection with the Bermuda Triangle, though the ship was far from it.
Mary Celeste is the proper spelling of the ship's name though it may sometimes be found as the Marie Celeste. This spelling is from an Arthur Conan Doyle story entitled J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement, published in 1884, part of The Captain of the Polestar. Doyle's story drew very heavily on the original incident, but included a considerable amount of fiction which has become mixed with fact in the public mind. Old sailors sometimes claimed that they had been aboard the Mary Celeste. Little credence is given to these stories.
After being recovered in 1872, the ship was then used for 12 years by a variety of owners before being loaded up with rubber boots and cat food by her last captain who attempted to sink her, apparently to claim insurance money. The plan did not work as the ship refused to sink having been run up on the Rochelois Reef in Haiti. The remains of the ship were discovered on 9th August 2001 by an expedition headed by author Clive Cussler (representing the National Underwater & Marine Agency) and Canadian film producer John Davis (president of
