Spectral Sails: The Mary Celeste

I've been thinking of ways to make things interesting on my profile for a while now. The movie stuff is fun and all, but I realize not everyone is too keen on that. My Crime Chronicles series seems to be doing well, and I wanted to add something else - another bit of 'serious' content - to my profile.

Welcome to Spectral Sails! In this series, we're going to look at stories of ghost ships and have a bit of fun exploring the events and lore behind each ship. I can't think of a better one to start with either, this is the spooky tale of the Mary Celeste.

Amazon: The Birth of the Mary Celeste

Constructed in Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia, the Mary Celeste was originally launched in 1861 as Amazon. It was a brigantine, a two-masted vessel built for speed. The ship was Canadian-built and registered in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. She weighed in at 198 metric tonnes and clocked in at a length of 30 meters (around 98ft.). All in all, a pretty impressive vessel.

Amazon set off on her maiden voyage under the command of one Robert McLellan, on June 10, 1861, headed for a place called Five Islands, Nova Scotia. Her cargo? A load of timber bound for London. Sadly, McLellan fell ill shortly after the ship was loaded and, from what I gather, they had to return to Spencer's Island where McLellan passed away on June 19, 1861.

John Nutting Parker took command of the vessel and they set sail for London. Unfortunately, she had a couple more misadventures including colliding with fishing equipment off the coast of Maine and sinking another ship in the English Channel...yikes. For the next two-ish years, Parker maintained command and the Amazon worked the West Indies trade circuit for a while.

Becoming Mary Celeste

When Parker stepped aside as captain, he was replaced with a man named William Thompson who maintained command until 1867. So, why would he lose command? Well, we don't really know if he resigned or was terminated - I couldn't find a note on that. Here's what we do know.

Sometime in October 1867, as she was sailing off the coast of Cape Breton Island, a storm came in forced the Amazon aground. The damage was severe, so severe that Thompson and his crew abandoned her. She was subsequently purchased by one Alexander McBean (what an unfortunate surname) as a derelict and re-sold to Richard Haines. Haines spent a fortune restoring the ship and then registered the ship as the Mary Celeste in 1868.

Now, this is where things get a little...fuzzy. Haines was registered as the captain of the Mary Celeste, but the following year, the ship was seized by creditors. In 1872, the ship got a major facelift with enlarged decks and some other repairs. She also got a new captain, a fellow named Benjamin Briggs.

The Last Letter

Okay, so first off, it's important to note that Briggs married a woman named Sarah and they had two kids; Arthur (b. 1865) and Sophia (b.1870). This will be relevant in a sec.

In October 1872, Briggs took command of the Mary Celeste and put together a crew. His crew was carefully chosen for the voyage and, considering this would be her first voyage after her makeover, Briggs arranged for Sarah and Sophia to join him. Arthur, on the other hand, was left in the care of his grandmother.

On October 20, they arrived in New York City to collect a cargo of alcohol - 1,701 barrels, to be exact...that's a lot of booze.

On November 5, the Mary Celeste departed from New York, heading for Genoa, Italy. To avoid potential damage by bad weather, they anchored off the coast of Staten Island. The delay allowed Sarah to write to her son.

"Tell Arthur, I make great dependence on I shall get from him, and will try to remember anything that happens on the voyage which he would be pleased to hear." - Sarah Briggs

The weather eased and the ship left two days later.

An Eerie Discovery

Now, it's important to note that while the Mary Celeste was gearing up for departure, another brigantine, the Dei Gratia, was in Hoboken, New Jersey. The ship was being loaded with a cargo of petroleum to be sent to Genoa via Gibraltar. With that in mind, the Dei Gratia took off for Gibraltar on November 15, eight days after Mary Celeste and followed roughly the same route.

On December 4, 1872, halfway between the Azores and the Portugal coast, the Dei Gratia's helmsman reported that a vessel was approaching from six miles out. As the unknown vessel came closer, the Dei Gratia's captain, David Morehouse noticed there was nobody on deck and his signals went unanswered.

Upon sending two of his crew to the vessel, they confirmed that it was the Mary Celeste before climbing aboard and finding the ship abandoned. The ship's log was found and the final entry, dated November 25, nine days before the discovery. There were no obvious signs of fire or foul play (violence, mutiny, etc.), but there was no sign of the crew.

The only sign of what may have happened to the crew, is that the ship's single lifeboat was missing.

Headed to Gibraltar

Once the crew had ID'd the Mary Celeste, Capt. Morehouse made the decision to take her to Gibraltar. The trip to Gibraltar was slow because the two vessels were shorthanded, but they made relatively good time arriving in Gibraltar on December 12, 1872.

Okay, so why would Capt. Morehouse take the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar instead of just leaving her be? Well, that's easy; money. Now, I'm not a lawyer, and the laws may have changed, but here's how I understood it: A ship's captain was entitled to a payment for his salvage efforts. The payment was usually financial - obviously - and was a share of the combined value of the ship's cargo and the full value of the ship itself.

Basically, the Admiralty would've taken the full value of the Mary Celeste and her cargo and given a sizable portion of that money to Capt. Morehouse.

The Hearings

Salvage hearings began on December 17, 1872, under the direction of Sir James Cochrane - Gibraltar's Chief Justice - and Frederick Solly-Flood, the Attorney General of Gibraltar.

Flood was apparently rather bull-headed, and the testimonies of the men that Morehouse sent over to the Mary Celeste convinced him that there was some sort of crime. An examination was ordered and some damage was found on the ship's hull - which was determined to have been made deliberately. This was all that Flood needed to determine that the ship had met with foul play.

Unfortunately for Flood, his theories were soon torn apart. First, a proper analysis was done on stains found on the captain's sword and a few other places on the ship. This analysis determined that the stains were NOT blood. Now, I'm not sure what kind of analysis was done, but it punched quite a hole in the theory. Another problem was that the US Consul in Gibraltar commissioned a report from a US Naval captain named Shufeldt.

Shufeldt's opinion? The marks on the ship were made by the natural interaction with the ocean.

Theories about the Ship's Fate

So, let's look into some of the theories about the fate of the Mary Celeste.

Meeting w. Foul Play

Foul play is one of the earliest theories, as we said before. The Mary Celeste was heavily insured which was a catalyst of sorts behind that theory. There were a few theories. Pirates were a fairly obvious suspect. That quickly fell through when it was noted that several valuable personal items had been left behind - pirates would've taken anything and everything that wasn't pinned down.

Another theory was that the crew got into the cargo and killed everyone - ignoring the fact that the alcohol was industrial strength. It probably would've killed them, assuming they didn't immediately pass out from the strength of the fumes.

Needless to say, the whole foul play aspect was pretty much shredded.

Problems with the Cargo

Another theory is that there was a problem with the cargo. The ship's log mentioned several small ominous sounds and small explosions from the cargo hold. Apparently this is a common thing with cargos of alcohol.

These types of cargo typically emit explosive gases, these sounds are therefore quite common. The theory here posits that there may have been a much larger or louder explosion which was set off by a crewman going below to investigate the noise with an open flame. That explosion probably dislodge the hatch and would've spooked the crew into the lifeboat.

The rope to the lifeboat had been cut, so the idea was that the crew had panicked after the explosion, and cut the line to abandon the ship.

Fighting with Mother Nature

Another theory involved good ol' Mother Nature. There are a few scenarios that have been put out there including:

• Waterspouts (tornados on the water)
• Earthquakes
• Reefs

So, let's take these in order. The waterspouts would've pulled water from the bilges which would have gone into the ship's pumps and flooded the holds.

Submarine earthquakes were another idea. The idea was that an earthquake on the seabed had created turbulence which damaged the ship and caused the release of fumes from the cargo hold. Those fumes scared the crew with the threat of an explosion.

Lastly, there was also a theory that the ship drifted towards the Dollabarat reef (a reef off the coast of Santa Maria Island). That reef would've done some serious damage to the ship.

Regardless, all of these things would've driven the crew into the lifeboat. Of course, once they were in the lifeboat there are a range of theories mostly that they were sunk by dangerous seas or drifted too far away before realizing the ship was actually safe.

The Final Voyage

The Mary Celeste left Genoa on June 26, 1873 and arrived in New York on September 19. Unfortunately, however, the many stories about the Mary Celeste had made her unpopular. She was later sold to a group of New York businessmen in February of 1874. The new owners sent their new ship throughout the West Indian and Indian routes.

Sadly, the Mary Celeste was constantly losing money so those New Yorkers didn't keep her for long. The ship was sold in 1880 to a group from Boston. They worked with a new captain, a Thomas L. Fleming, until 1884 when he was replaced by a man named Gilman C. Parker.

Parker didn't last long...he got himself into serious trouble. For starters, he over insured the ship and its cargo - which was actually largely junk. On January 3, 1885, The Mary Celeste approached the Haitian port of Port-au-Prince. You know what else was in Port-au-Pair? A nasty reef...a very, very nasty reef. As he approached the port, Parker ran the Mary Celeste aground on the reef - deliberately - and pretty much destroyed the hull.

Of course, it wasn't long before Parker's scheme fell apart. The guy who purchased the junk cargo complained to someone and an investigation started. Captain Con Artist was arrested and charged with conspiracy and barratry. Now, I had no idea what barratry was so I looked it up.

The common law definition is basically a crime where someone constantly messes around with the legal system by filing baseless lawsuits. At the time, an older definition was fraud and/or gross negligence by a ship's captain and /or crew at the expense of the ship's owner. The barratry charge was, at the time, a death penalty offense.

The jury couldn't make a decision on the conspiracy charge because they didn't want to prejudice the trial for barratry. The judge subsequently offered a deal; withdraw all claims and repay all the money received. As far as the barratry charge goes, the verdict was deferred and Parker was released. With his professional reputation in ruins, Gilman C. Parker died in poverty three months after the trial.

His co-conspirators also had serious problems with one going mad and one committing suicide.

A Ghost Ship's Legacy

There have been many stories of ghost ships over the years, but the Mary Celeste is probably one of the more well-known ones.

After 153 years the mystery of the Mary Celeste will probably continue to be exactly that: a mystery. There haven't been any answers so far and I doubt that's going to change. Still, her mystery is a great story and that is enough for me.

I hope you guys enjoyed this article, feel free to recommend another ghost ship for the series in the comments.