Ghost Ship Found: What happened on the Mary Celeste?

The Mary Celeste was an American merchant vessel turned “ghost ship” during a voyage from New York to Genoa, Italy. Though this was Mary Celeste’s most famous trip, she has been known to bring misery, misfortune, and even death (in some cases) to every captain who sailed her.

Can a ship be cursed? Are most sea captains and crew superstitious for good reason? Does the ocean have a will of its own, giving and taking as it sees fit? In this article, we will learn about the captains, the crews, and the mysteriously creepy stories of the ghost ship known as the Mary Celeste.

A Ship, By Any Other Name…

Mary Celeste’s origin story begins in Nova Scotia, Canada. Constructed with local timber, she was designed to be a brigantine (a ship constructed with two masts with at least two square sails on each mast). Her dimensions measured 99.3 feet long, 25.5 feet wide, 11.7 feet deep, and weighed in at 198 tons. Her first name was the Amazon when she was first launched on May 18, 1861. Robert McLellan was appointed as her first captain.

A Cursed Maiden Voyage

Captain McLellan’s job was to take the Amazon on her maiden voyage. The assignment was simple enough. His instructions were to sail the ship from Spencer’s island, Nova Scotia, to the nearby Five Islands where the crew would pick up a cargo of lumber, transport it across the Atlantic ocean, and drop it off in London.

It was June when the crew started loading up the Amazon. While the captain was supervising the activity at Five Islands, he became severely ill. Unable to continue, the crew brought McLellan back to Spencer’s island where he died a few days later.

Let’s Try That Maiden Voyage Again

John Nutting Parker was appointed as the Amazon’s second captain and took up the assignment to transport the cargo to London. Within days, he was met with his first setback. As the Amazon sailed through Eastport, Maine, the captain ran her into some fishing equipment, causing delays and some minor damage. Luckily, the ship made it to London and the cargo was delivered. On the way back; however, Captain Parker ran the Amazon into another brigantine, causing the other ship to sink in the English Channel.

Parker remained Captain of the Amazon for two more years without further incident.

Shipwreck

In 1863, William Thompson became captain of the Amazon. Perhaps he was a more competent captain than Parker, or maybe he was just lucky, but Thompson successfully navigated the West Indies, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean, moving cargo back and forth until 1867. Unfortunately, Captain Thompson’s good four-year-streak with the cursed ship was ended on October of that year, when he encountered a nasty storm. The weather conditions were so severe that the Amazon was shipwrecked on Cape Breton Island. The captain and crew, lucky to escape with their lives, had no choice but to abandon her.

A few weeks later, a man named Alexander McBean claimed the derelict ship and sold it to a New Yorker named Richard W. Haines who restored her and made himself the new captain.

New Country, New Name, New Captain, Same curse?

In December of 1868, captain Haines had finished all restorations on the Amazon. He registered her as an American vessel and gave her the now infamous name: Mary Celeste. It is unknown if Haines managed to sail her around. Haines’s creditors seized Mary Celeste a few months after the ship’s registration and sold her to another New Yorker name James H. Winchester.

Under Winchester’s supervision, the Mary Celeste underwent additional construction to make her larger and to give her a second deck. Her new dimensions were 103 feet long, 25.7 feet wide, and 16.2 feet deep. This increased her weight to 282.28 tons.

Though Winchester retained 50% of the investment, he had two other small investors (holding 8% each) and one other investor who owned 34%. This other investor became the ship’s new captain, Benjamin Spooner Briggs. It was under Captain Briggs’s command that the Mary Celeste would become synonymous with the term “ghost ship”.

Captain Briggs

Captain Briggs was no stranger to the water. He was the son of a sea captain and had two other brothers (out of three) that also became sea captains. He was a devout Christian, a loving husband to his wife, Elizabeth Cobb, and a protective father to both his son, Arthur, and daughter, Sophia. By the time Sophia was born, Captain Briggs had earned a high standing reputation in his field. Though he was ready to retire from the sea, the opportunity to invest in the Mary Celeste came up and he bought it – hook, line, and sinker.

Staffing the Mary Celeste

Captain Briggs took command of the Mary Celeste in October, 1872. Her maiden voyage was to transport 1,701 large barrels of non-potable alcohol from New York to Genoa, Italy. Briggs decided to take his wife and young daughter with him, while leaving his son, who was attending school at the time, with his grandmother.

Given that his family was on board, Briggs chose his crew very carefully. They composed of:

• Albert G. Richardson – First Mate (Related to Winchester and sailed under Briggs before)
• Andrew Gilling – Second Mate (25-year old from New York)
• Edward William Head – Steward (Personally recommended by Winchester)
• Four general seamen (All described as “peaceable and first-class sailors”)

Both Briggs and his wife were happy with the crew and believed them to be very capable.

Mary Celeste’s Maiden Voyage

While Mary Celeste was being loaded with drums of alcohol, a nearby Canadian brigantine named the Dei Gratia was being loaded up with petroleum. The Dei Gratia, led by Captain David Morehouse, was also headed for Genoa, Italy, but would depart eight days after the Mary Celeste. Though there is limited evidence available, it is reported that Briggs and Morehouse were friends and possibly had dinner together the night before the Mary Celeste began her voyage.

On Tuesday, November 5^th, 1872, the Mary Celeste left the pier. Though Briggs believed the ship to be in fine shape, he was not confident in the weather. He decided to move her to a harbor near Staten Island where he anchored her for two more days while the weather cleared up. With his wife and child on board, Captain Briggs was not taking any chances.

On November 7^th, the Mary Celeste sailed out into the Atlantic and headed for Italy. No one on the ship would ever be seen or heard from again.

Dei Gratia Discovers the Ghost Ship

On December 4^th, Captain Morehouse came on deck of the Dei Gratia, which was sailing between the Azores and Portugal’s coast. He was hailed over by his helmsman who told him that a vessel, approximately 6 miles away, was heading towards their ship. It was moving erratically and its sails were set in a strange configuration. Captain Morehouse immediately became concerned and monitored the ship’s approach closely.

As the brigantine got closer, the crew of the Dei Gratia could see that there was no one on deck. Captain Morehouse tried to signal the ship, but received no reply. The ship drifted a little closer and now Morehouse could read her name painted on the side. It was none other than the Mary Celeste.

Acting quickly, Morehouse sent his First Mate, Deveau and Second Mate, Wright in a small boat to board the Mary Celeste. Their discovery was puzzling and eerie. The ship was completely deserted.

Mary Celeste Left Some Clues

Deveau and Write walked the ship and noted the oddities as follows:

• The sails were partly set, but in bad condition
• The rigging had sustained some damage and ropes were left hanging over the sides
• The main hatch cover was secure, but the fore hatch and the storage hatches were open with their covers laying nearby on the deck
• The lifeboat was missing
• The ship’s daily log book remained on the ship
• A pump was disassembled on deck
• The stand that housed the ship’s compass was moved out of place and it’s glass cover was broken.
• There was 3.5 feet of water in the hold (not uncommon for a ship of Mary Celeste’s size)
• A rod used for measuring the amount of water in the hold was left on the deck
• Captain Briggs’s personal items were scattered in his cabin, but most of the ship’s papers and navigational instruments were missing
• The Galley equipment was neatly put away
• Food stores were in tact
• There were no signs of violence or fire

Did the Log Book Have the Answers?

The last entry in the daily log book was dated November 25^th at 8am (9 days earlier). The position of the ship was noted as being off the coast of Santa Maria Island in the Azores, about 400 nautical miles from where the ship was discovered by the Dei Gratia. Could the ship have sailed that far away on its own or was the crew of the Mary Celeste mistaken about where they were positioned the morning of November 25^th?

Though the Mary Celeste has suffered some damage, Deveau reported that the ship was in sailable condition. With all of the evidence at hand, it appeared that the entire crew departed from the ship on the lifeboat in an orderly fashion.

We’ll come back to Briggs’s story and some theories as to what happened to the crew further down in this article. The incredible story of the Mary Celeste continues.

Opportunity Knocks

Under maritime law, a person who recovers a derelict ship could earn a large share of the value of both the ship AND the cargo. Captain Morehouse divided Dei Gratia’s crew, sending four men to the Mary Celeste. They would bring it into Gibraltar, which was 600 nautical miles away. Both ships arrived safely and the Mary Celeste was taken to an impound where she was prepared for a salvage hearing. The crew was excited to have managed the rescue of the goods and expected a large compensation.

The Hearing

The salvage hearing did not go as the crew of the Dei Gratia had hoped. The court believed that Deveau’s testimony hinted at foul-play and that alcohol was a factor, ignoring the fact that the alcohol on board was not fit for human consumption.

An examination of the Mary Celeste was ordered. Notes from the exam recorded that there were cuts on each side of the bow and possible traces of blood on the sword Captain Briggs kept under his bed. The report also included that the ship did not appear to have suffered weather damage, nor had it been involved in a collision or run aground. Another inspection discovered possible blood stains on the ship’s rails as well as a deep strike mark that could have come from an axe.

On January 22, 1873, the court submitted their conclusion that the crew had consumed the alcohol, murdered Captain Briggs, his wife, and his daughter, damaged the bows to make it look like the ship had been in a collision, and fled in the life boat. The court was also suspicious of the crew of the Dei Gratia, believing that the Mary Celeste’s log book had been doctored, since the unmanned Mary Celeste would have had to travel a large distance in order to be discovered in the location the crew of the Dei Gratia said it was.

Remember Winchester, the Guy Who Owns 50% of the Ship?

When James Winchester arrived in Gibraltar, his main concern was having the Mary Celeste released so that it could fulfill its commitment to deliver its cargo. His concern soon shifted when he realized that the court believed that Winchester master-minded a plot to have Captain Briggs killed in a conspiracy to claim the ship. This, of course, made no sense, since Winchester had the most to lose from an investment perspective.

On January 29^th, Winchester testified to Briggs’s high competence as a captain and was adamant that he would not have abandoned the ship unless it was a last resort. With this account and some additional scientific evidence proving that the stains in the ship were not blood, the court had no choice but to release the Mary Celeste to James Winchester. Morehouse and his crew were awarded 1/5^th of what they were expecting, largely due to the fact that the court’s suspicions of them never subsided.

Mary Celeste’s 6^th Captain (but who’s counting?)

In March of 1873, Winchester named George Blatchford as captain of the Mary Celeste to finally deliver the alcohol to Genoa. The ship left Italy on June 26^th, and arrived in New York on September 19^th of that year. News of the ghost ship’s reputation, including the suspicions raised at the Gibraltar hearings made her an undesirable ship to work on. In February of 1874, Winchester and his partners sold the ship to another New Yorker at a loss.

But Wait, There’s More!

The Mary Celeste became extremely difficult to staff and continuously lost money. Reports of the ship popped up here and there. In February, 1879, a distress call was sent out near the island of St. Helena because the new captain, Edgar Tuthill had fallen ill. Captain Tuthill died on the island days later.

In 1884 Gilman C. Parker assumed the role of captain. Parker had a plan and knew how to make the ship profitable. Conspiring with some shippers from Boston, he filled the Mary Celeste with valueless goods, recorded high-value goods on the ship’s manifest, and took out insurance on the cargo for $30,000 USD (close to $1 million today).

The Best Laid Plans

On December 16^th, Captain Parker set sail for Port-au-Prince, Haiti. As the ship approached the port on January 3^rd, Parker deliberately crashed her into a well-known, well-documented coral reef, gutting the bottom of the boat and causing irreparable damage. The crew got into a life boat and rowed to shore as planned.

Parker sold the cargo to the American consul for $500 and filed the insurance claim for the high-value goods. What he didn’t anticipate was the complaint from the American consul, who were extremely vocal about the goods on the ship being completely worthless. Parker’s insurance company decided to investigate. This evidence was used against Parker and the other shippers, who were tried in Boston for conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. But the curse of the Mary Celeste wasn’t done with this group. Parker died three months later, one of the shippers went mad, and another shipper committed suicide.

They were the last souls to ever sail the Mary Celeste.

Getting back to Briggs and the Abandoned Ship

The ocean is a dangerous place. Any captain that orders the crew to abandon ship would only do so in the most dire of situations. With Briggs’s wife and daughter on board, precaution and safety would have been his utmost concern, demonstrated by the fact that he delayed their trip by two days due to uncertain weather conditions. Given that the ghost ship was found in rough, but sailable condition, what would have alarmed Briggs so much as to risk the lives of his family and his crew? Here are a list of theories, though to this day, none have been confirmed:

1) Foul Play

Though Winchester was cleared of any wrongdoing at the Gibraltar hearing, newspapers reported that the Mary Celeste was greatly over-insured. The insurance companies never investigated Winchester and there was no more on this subject.

A 1931 article in the Quarterly Review proposed that Captain Morehouse could have planned an attack on the Mary Celeste, luring Briggs and his crew aboard the Dei Gratia and killing them there. This theory ignores the fact that the Dei Gratia left eight days after the Mary Celeste and would have never been able to catch up with her before she reached Gibraltar.

Another theory proposed that Morehouse and Briggs conspired to share the ship’s goods. In this model, Briggs and crew would disappear without a trace and Morehouse would save the day and collect the salvage. Would Briggs have brought his wife and daughter and leave his only son behind? I don’t think so.

2) A Temporary Safety Measure

One theory suggests that Briggs may have believed there was some danger on the ship. Possibly something to do with the alcohol containers exploding. In Deveau’s report, he stated that there were ropes hanging over the side of the boat. If this was true, Briggs might have ordered his family and the crew onto the life boat which was still tethered to the Mary Celeste. When the perceived danger passed, the crew would have been able to re-board the ship, but if the rope snapped, they would have drifted away and succumbed to the elements. Experienced sea captains find this theory highly illogical, as they believe that even if the cargo did explode, the Mary Celeste still would have been the best vessel to cling to for survival as opposed to the life boat.

3) Forces of Nature

Some suggest the possibility that Briggs called for the abandon ship because he believed the Mary Celeste was sinking. Deveau found a stick being used to measure water in the hull. This theory proposes that a severe waterspout strike forced water into the ship, giving Briggs the impression that the ship was taking on water. This would also explain the damage to the sails and rigging. A “seaquake” could have also caused similar damage to the surface of the ship. This may have also knocked some of the cargo around, causing it to release fumes, and triggering a fear of explosion. The fact that the hatches were opened support the theory that Briggs was trying to air out the vessel.

4) Technical Malfunction

This last theory was put forward by the Smithsonian in 2007. It suggests that the pump and navigational instruments were both malfunctioning at the time the abandon ship was called. The disassembled pump that was found on deck suggests that one of the crew was trying to repair it. Without the pump working correctly added to the fact that the hull was packed full, Briggs would not be able to judge how much water had been taken on-board. If his chronometer was also malfunctioning, he might have thought they were closer to land than they actually were. This would also explain the recording of the ship’s unlikely position on November 25^th.

Where is the Mary Celeste Now?

In August 2001, Clive Cussler, marine archaeologist found pieces of the Mary Celeste embedded in the Rochelois reef. After all of these years, there were only a few pieces of metal and timber that could be recovered. Tests revealed that it was an exact match to the wood that was used in the New York shipyards at the time of Mary Celeste’s re-sizing project in 1872.

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References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste https://allthatsinteresting.com/mary-celeste https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/abandoned-ship-the-mary-celeste-174488104/