The Mystery of the Mary Celeste

The modern scientific technology has made large contribution to unravel the ocean’s mysteries. However, many stories recorded in history cannot be solved by mankind and end up being enigmas. One of them is the story of the most famous ghost ship Mary Caleste. This American vessel was a dual-mast ancient ship, more commonly known then as a brigantine, found drifting mysteriously in the Atlantic Ocean.

Originally christened as the Amazon, the ship was built in the year 1860 in the Nova Scotian hamlet of Spencer’s Island on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. They constructed the ship of locally felled timber and launched the vessel on May 18, 1861. Between the early and mid-1860s, the vessel’s owners encountered a series of accidents with the vessel trading hands quite frequently in this time-period. A local consortium of nine people owned her; among the co-owners was Robert McLellan, the ship’s first captain. For her maiden voyage, the ship sailed to Five Islands, Nova Scotia, to take on cargo for passage to London. After he supervised the ship’s loading, Captain McLellan became ill. The captain’s condition worsened, and the vessel returned to Spencer’s Island, where he died on June 19. Lives of three captains were lost which further added to the negative reputation gained by the vessel. However, despite the mass negativity garnered, Amazon did manage to have successful voyages though the negativity far outweighed this success rate.

In the year 1867, the vessel was salvaged to a New York based marine corporation and consequently re-christened as Mary Celeste and was put under the skippering of Captain Benjamin Briggs. He organized the refurbished Mary Celeste’s first trip, choosing his crew. Along with Captain Briggs and his family – wife and daughter – the ship had a crew of eight people, consisted of respectable, experienced sailors: American Albert G Richardson as first mate; Andrew Gilling, from Denmark as second mate; the steward and cook, Edward William Head, and four Germans — Volkert Lorenzen and his brother Boz, Arian Martens and Gottlieb Goodschaad making up the rest of the men. On October 20, Briggs and his men arrived at New York’s East River to load the ship’s cargo of industrial alcohol. While Mary Celeste prepared to sail, the Canadian Dei Gratia lay nearby in Hoboken, New Jersey, awaiting a cargo of petroleum destined for Genoa via Gibraltar. Captain David Morehouse and his first mate Oliver Deveau, both Nova Scotian were highly experienced and respected seamen.

Clear weather set in, and Mary Celeste left New York, heading into the Atlantic. But the mystery of Mary Celeste starts soon after the ship was tasked with the transportation of about 1,700 alcohol casks to the Italian province of Genoa in the year 1872. The vessel which departed as per her schedule on the seventh of November 1872 did not reach the Genoese port at all but was found to be adrift in the Gibraltar strait by the vessel Dei Gratia, with Captain Morehouse, which had left the New York harbor exactly a week after the Mary Celeste’s departure. Dei Gratia had reached midway between the Azores and the coast of Portugal at about 1 p.m. on Wednesday, December 4, 1872, land time (Thursday, December 5, sea time). Sea time in the 19th century was 12 hours ahead of land time. Captain Morehouse came on deck, and the helmsman reported a vessel about 6 miles away, heading unsteadily towards Dei Gratia. The ship did not look quite right: its sails were not in the expected position, and the movement of the ship did not look planned. Captain Morehouse watched from the deck, and as the unknown ship came closer. They sent signals but received no response. He knew he should investigate, so he sent two of his crew, first mate Oliver Deveau and second mate John Wright, out. The ship’s sails were damaged; some were missing. Two hatches were open, and the small lifeboat was gone. The floor of the hold was submerged in about 3–1/2 feet of water. The ship’s name, displayed on her stern, was the Mary Celeste. In the mate’s cabin, however, was the ship’s log, filled in daily. They dated the last entry for 8 a.m. on November 25, from a location 400 nautical miles from where she was now. What had happened in the space of those nine days was a mystery. The perplexing details were soon obvious. The shipmen and the captain were nowhere to be found while the only lifeboat equipped in the boat was missing. But even as these two things became clear, it was also found that the commodities aboard the vessel – the cargo and the personal belongings of the people – were completely untouched which negated the theory of pirates raiding the vessel almost immediately.

While speculations came forth about the tyranny of the captain towards his crew, the fact that Captain Briggs was an honorable man with a high sense of duty and integrity towards his profession, soon overruled these speculations. One theory that has gained a lot of credibility about the ghost ship is the one revolving around the alcohol casks and the captain’s decision to abandon the vessel before a fire could erupt. The fact that nine casks of alcohol were uncovered, and a rope was dangling into the water added to the credibility of this supposition, though nothing concrete has still been established. Other popular rumors and theories about the Mary Celeste mystery include mutiny, encountering flying saucers, accidental foraying into the Bermuda Triangle and also encountering harsh weather conditions. But since the vessel was found intact with no visible damages, all these theories just remain suppositions. Yet more theories also abounded, including a pump blocked by dust from the ship’s previous cargo of coal; some other pump malfunction; a seaquake; or even an iceberg. It was not these mundane explanations that caught the public’s imagination, though. It was the fact that so much was unknown, and that there had been no subsequent sign of those on board the ship. No bodies had been found, but neither had anyone ever been found alive.

On January 3, 1885, GC Parker, who was the last owner of the Mary Celeste, conspired for insurance claims by sinking his ship in the Caribbean Sea. He deliberately ran the ship on the Rochelois Bank, a large and well-charted coral reef, ripping out the vessel’s bottom and wrecking her beyond repair. But before Parker could claim for the alleged insurance value, the ship’s insurers began a thorough investigation, which soon revealed the truth of the over-insured fraud. After severe damage due to the sinking attempt, the Mary Celeste was abandoned, and then sank slowly with all the mystery that surrounds it.