Mary Celeste Mystery
Facts, theories & wild speculation
7 November, 1872
The Mary Celeste sails from New York with a cargo of industrial alcohol, used to fortify wine.
On board are thirty-seven-year-old Captain Briggs, his wife Sarah and their two-year-old daughter, Sophia. Their school-aged son has been left at home in the care of his grandmother.
Briggs is skippering the ship for the first time but is an experienced captain. He owns a small share in the ship and has personally selected the seven-man crew. His first-mate, Albert Richardson, has sailed with him previously and four German seamen from the Frisian Islands are “peaceable and first-class sailors” as Mrs Briggs writes to her mother.
Provisions also seem satisfactory. These include a six month supply of food and clean fresh water for a voyage expected to last around 30 days.
December 4th, 1872 — discover by the Dei Gratia
It’s a hot afternoon. The Dei Gratia, sister ship of the Mary Celeste, is sailing from the Azores towards the Portuguese coast. The sea is calm.
The first mate spots another ship on the horizon. He notes that this second ship is following an erratic course and appears to be drifting. After observing this for some time he calls his captain to take a look.
Captain Morehouse comes out on deck. He takes the telescope and takes some moments to confirm what he is seeing. ‘It looks like the Mary Celeste,’ he says, confusion etched on his face.
‘But she left New York a week ahead of us, Captain.’
All the crew of the Dei Gratia now watch the clearly stricken shipdrifting on the tide. ‘And no one has come up on deck?’ asks Captain Morehouse
‘There’s no sign of life at all, Captain.’
‘Then prepare a boarding party. Briggs wouldn’t allow his ship to drift like that. Something is wrong.’
Boarding Party
The first mate and two other crew members sail out towards the Mary Celeste in a small boat.
As they get closer to the ship all conversation stops. They can hear the sound of the sails blowing in the wind. Still nobody comes on deck to greet them.
The men from the Dei Gratia board the ship. ‘Ahoy there!’ they call out. ‘Is anyone here?’
But there’s no answer. Captain Briggs is not on board. Nor are his wife and daughter. Nor are his seven crew.
What did the boarding party find below deck?
Perhaps the most enduring myth is that of the ‘half eaten meal’. There are several variants. One has the table laid for breakfast. Another involves plates of half-eaten food, cups of warm tea and even a warm apple pie.
In fact the boarding party declared to a later enquiry, “The whole ship was a thoroughly wet mess.” That said, there were surprises:
All the… furniture in the Captain’s cabin, including a harmonium, were in their proper places and uninjured by water, the music and other books being also dry.
The person possessions have a powerful emotional resonance:
But it is the missing items that are perhaps most important in building a picture of what happened. The last logbook entry was dated at 8 a.m. on November 25. In the subsequent nine days the ship had travelled 400 nautical miles (740 km).
The absence of a sextant and chronometer suggest the attempt to leave the ship for another vessel, most probably in the missing lifeboat.
What happened? Theories
Apologies to the totally bonkers community, abduction by aliens or sea monsters do not meet (generous!) minimum plausibility standards. I’m also ruling out the popular seaquake/tsunami theory and variants — rogue wave, waterspout etc. In all cases there would have been more damage to the vessel
Pirates falls down because nothing was stolen. That the cargo — a large consignment said it is true that the large alcohol
An alcohol explosion causing panic and an evacuation is more intriguing. There were nine missing caskets and an explosion is a possibility. But the ship was not seriously damaged makes this more unlikely.
That leaves three broad possibilities.
1. A mutiny
A hypothesis explored at the 1873 was that the crew got drunk with the alcohol on the ship. Did the crew mutiny, murdering the captain and his family before escaping in lifeboat? A lifeboat
Positives: Briggs did not know all his crew members and mutinies on cargo vessels were not uncommon. The missing lifeboat would also have been vulnerable in bad weather
Negatives: Murdering an entire family seems an unlikely outcome from even the most drunken sailors. Besides, the alcohol was industrial and so effectively undrinkable. And why escape in a dangerous lifeboat? Why not sail to somewhere they could escape from? Nor were there any signs of struggle — marks found turned out to be very old.
The official enquiry found no evidence of a recent violent struggle on the ship. Verdict: extremely unlikely
2. Insurance Fraud
Was there a complex scheme involving Dei Gratia and the Mary Celeste? There have been theories that Morehouse and/or Captain Briggs were involved involved a in a complex insurance fraud.
Morehouse and Briggs were friends — did they work together to invent the story? One report claims they had dinner together at the Astoria in New York the night before the Mary Celeste sailed.
Did Captain Morehouse know that the Mary Celeste would be deserted? Was it all an elaborate hoax? Or were the Dei Gratia crew fake friends who murdered their hosts after boarding? Perhaps by some devious method like poison?
Positives: This was another line of enquiry taken at the 1873 enquiry. It was viewed as suspicious that the Dei Gratia owners would gain from the insurance claim
Drawbacks: No evidence was found at the enquiry or since. Such a convoluted plot with so many conspirators would have unravelled under such scrutiny. There were no signs of struggle and other murder methods seems fanciful (A slice of my poison pie, Captain Briggs? And please help yourself Mrs Briggs!).
Verdict: Bonkers conspiracy theory
3. Abandoned during a storm
The most puzzling aspect of the mystery is why a seaworthy ship was abandoned. The most likely reason is that Captain Briggs believed the ship to be in imminent danger of sinking — probably during a storm, though conceivably as the result of an onboard explosion see above
Verdict: As Holmes says, ‘eliminate the impossible and what remains…’ Extreme weather causing a fatal human error is the most rational explanation, given the information we have
An Unsolved Maritime Enigma — more exploration of the details (Medium)
