Where did the family of the captain and the crew of the Mary Celeste ship go? Why did they leave the ship in the middle of the sea? These are two of many unanswered questions.
One day in early November 1872, Captain Benjamin Briggs was ready to command the first voyage of the ship Mary Celeste. He spent weeks overseeing loading onto ships longer than 30 meters, 1,701 barrels of industrial alcohol, and carefully selecting seven men for his crew.
The fate of Captain Briggs and his family and the crew of the Mary Celeste ship is still an unanswered question. Artwork: Vessel Finder.
Journey from New York (USA), to Genoa (Italy) is a relatively short journey, but Briggs has good reason to be cautious. Not only did he use his savings to buy a ship, but his wife, Sarah, and 2-year-old daughter, Sophia, followed Briggs during the trip.
On November 3, 1872, Briggs sent a letter to his mother in Marion, Massachusetts. “Our ship is beautifully decorated,” he wrote. “I hope we will have a good journey.” Four days later, he and his crew and family set out. But they never returned.
Eight days after the Mary Celeste ship left New York Harbor, the escort ship Dei Gratia of Canada set sail on the same voyage to Genoa. The trip was not special until the afternoon of December 4, when the crew saw a ship drifting between the Azores archipelago and the Portuguese coast in the North Atlantic. After signaling to the Mary Celeste but received no response, Captain David Morehouse sent three people to inspect. They see the scene like in a ghost story.
The ship was not silhouetted. The rudder rotates indefinitely on the empty deck. One sail was damaged while the other sails were out of shape. The only lifeboat is gone and one of the ship’s pumps has been disassembled. Except for a few damaged boxes, the cargo on board was intact. The hull was about a meter in depth, not to worry. The warehouse is fully stocked to last up to 6 months. The crew left their cigarettes and pipes behind. In the captain’s room, everything remains in place.
The last entry of the log was dated November 24 with common information, but the location of the Mary Celeste was about 400 nautical miles west of where the Dei Gratia discovered it. There is no explanation as to why Captain Briggs left the ship in the middle of the ocean and how it could travel so far with just one sail. Captain Morehouse decided to bring the Mary Celeste to the port of Gibraltar. Under the maritime law, he is entitled to a share of the total value of the ship and the amount of cargo it carries. This is a decision he and the crew will later regret.
The hearing to determine the fate of the derelict ship was conducted by Attorney General Gibraltar Frederick Solly-Flood. He believes that a serious crime took place under the influence of alcohol, despite the fact that the cargo that the Mary Celeste was carrying was mainly toxic industrial alcohol.
The Flood hypothesis was that the crew destroyed and killed the captain and his family in a drunken stupor. In order to conceal their crimes, they damaged the bow of the ship to look like it had collided, then left on the lifeboat with most of the captain’s navigation and papers.
Morehouse and the crew of the ship Dei Gratia were also questioned by Flood. According to him, they lied about where the Mary Celeste was found and falsified the ship’s log. Although Flood’s hypotheses were later disproved, doubts remained with Captain Moorehouse and his crew for the remainder of his career.
For more than a century, countless theories about the disappearance of the family of Captain Briggs and the crew of the ship Mary Celeste have been put forward, whether they were attacked by pirates, hit by giant killer squids or even is being kidnapped by aliens.
More plausibly, the damaged barrels in the ship’s bunker sparked speculation that a concussion caused the leak of flammable alcohol vapors. An explosion could panic Captain Briggs and order the ship to abandon the ship too soon. However, if so, the Dei Gratia’s crew must smell strange when boarding or detect signs of fire.
Up to now, questions about the whereabouts of 10 people aboard the Mary Celeste that disappeared in the North Atlantic between November 24 and December 4, 1872 have not been answered. The available data is so meager and the possibilities are almost limitless.
The fate of the Mary Celeste ship, though, is clear. In January 1885, it was sunk on a reef off the coast of Haiti. The ship’s captain, Gilman C. Parker, conspired with a group of Boston shippers to cheat insurance money. The ghost ship will never set sail again.
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