The Mary Celeste

11th Mar 2021

The Mary Celeste was a merchant brigantine, found adrift near the Azores on the 4th December 1872. The ship was empty, devoid of crew and passengers. Even before her unsolved abandonment, the Mary Celeste was known as a jinx ship suffering misfortunes on every voyage she made.

The Mary Celeste was considered unlucky after various major incidents. The ship was built in 1861 and christened The Amazon. For her maiden voyage, she sailed to Five Islands to convey a cargo of timber across the Atlantic Ocean to London. The captain on this first voyage, Captain McLellan, became ill after monitoring the loading of the ship. He was so poorly, The Amazon returned to Spencer's Island where McLellan died a few days later.

Captain John Nutting Parker took over from McLellan and resumed the journey to London. They ran into a fishing weir in Maine, and the hull was badly damaged. In 1863, on the Atlantic crossing returning from London, The Amazon collided with a brig in the Straits of Dover, sank it and suffered quite a battering herself. In 1867, the ship ran aground on Cape Breton and was declared a wreck. Alexander McBean bought and repaired the vessel. He went bankrupt soon after.

Some time later, The Amazon was bought by James H. Winchester and the name was changed to Mary Celeste. Sailors refused to crew this ship as it was deemed unlucky, especially after the name was changed.

In 1872, Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs bought a part share from Winchester. On the 7th November, she sailed from New York's East River en route to Genoa, closely followed by another brigantine, the Dei Gratia, which sailed a week later, headed for Gibraltar. The captain on the Mary Celeste was a profoundly religious man who, purportedly, read the bible every day. On this trip he was joined by his wife and two-year-old daughter, plus a crew of seven.

Meanwhile, the Dei Gratia had reached a position halfway between the Azores and the coast of Portugal at approximately 1pm on the 4th December.

The captain went up on deck and received a report that a vessel, at a distance of about 6 miles, was making her way unsteadily towards them. He couldn't see anyone on board, and his hailing received no response. She was under partial sail, navigating with the wind so erratically that he sent a boarding party to investigate. They confirmed that this was the Mary Celeste. The ship was completely deserted and her only lifeboat was missing. A storm seemed to have hit the ship as the binnacle had been knocked out of place and the glass on the compass had been shattered.

There was only about a metre of water in the hold – not dangerous enough to warrant an evacuation of the vessel. The provisions and cargo were all intact, including an adequate supply of fresh water. Left behind also were the crew's boots, oilskins, coats and even their pipes and tobacco, all in good shape. Toys were on the captain's bed, as if his little girl had been playing there before the disruption. Oliver Deveau, leader of the boarding party from the Dei Gratia, later claimed: “There seemed to be everything left behind in the cabins as if left in a great hurry, but everything in its place.”

It's a total mystery why the crew of the Mary Celeste abandoned the vessel, presumably by lifeboat, without taking essentials for their survival. The only things missing from the ship were its papers and the navigation instruments.

The boarding party found the ship's log, its final entry dated 8am on the 25th November (nine days earlier). The position recorded at the time was off Santa Maria Island in the Azores, nearly 400 nautical miles from the point where the Dei Gratia discovered her.

These were all clues pointing to unexplained circumstances. Two mysterious grooves, measuring about two metres in length, were discovered on the sides of the bow, just above the waterline. There was a mark on the ship's rail, made by what looked like an axe, and some brown stains, thought to be blood, on the deck and on the captain's sword in his cabin.

The crew of the Dei Gratia split up and sailed both ships to Gibraltar, where the Mary Celeste would be salvaged. After a very slow journey due to lack of full crew on both ships, the vessels arrived between the 12th and 13th of December in Gibraltar.

Misfortune continued for the Mary Celeste. In April 1873, Captain Blatchford was sent from the USA to Gibraltar to complete the intended voyage to Genoa, unload and then sail back to America. As soon as they arrived, Winchester sold the Mary Celeste.
The new owner loaded the ship with cargo and sent her to Montevideo. She encountered a storm en route which destroyed part of the rigging, and all her cargo was lost.
Once she was repaired (again!), the Mary Celeste set sail once more, this time with horses and mules. Yes, you guessed right – during the journey, all the livestock died, and, as if that wasn't enough to force you to throw in the towel, the sixth captain died a few days later.
Then Gilman C. Parker bought the ill-fated vessel to operate an insurance fiddle. Needless to say, it all went horribly wrong for this fellow and he ended up ruined and working on the railways. He died a short time later.
Of the other two involved in the swindle, one committed suicide and the other was sent to a lunatic asylum. Both the companies involved in the scam went bankrupt. The bad luck following this doomed ship certainly made sure it covered all bases!

So, the crew of the unfortunate Mary Celeste was never seen again. There have been many theories surrounding this mystery, but, so far, no one has been able to come up with the definite answer. Clearly, the crew was not in panic-mode. They must have left the ship in a relatively orderly fashion, as they paused long enough to consider taking the ship's papers and some instruments, but left provisions and essentials behind. Why? Did they intend to come back to the vessel? What happened? Where did they go? What caused the two long grooves at the bow? Did they collide with something able to cause those deep marks on the ship? This story is certainly submerged in mystery! Will we ever know the real truth?

Although this all happened almost 150 years ago, it appears the Mary Celeste is still out there … sailors all over have reported sightings of the ship's ghostly image floating on the Atlantic Ocean – a tale that is recounted again and again over a glass of rum on a stormy night.

The Mary Celeste and whatever happened to her crew will remain an enigma for ever ……