Posh by Mandi…whatever happened to the Mary Celeste?
We all love a good mystery, and this serves to tantalize all lovers of fiction. It inspired the movie Ghost Ship as well as a short story written by Arthur Conan Doyle…but remember, it’s all fiction. What are the facts behind the mysterious end of the Mary Celeste? Grab a latte, and let’s dig in!
On November 7, 1872, the Mary Celeste set sail from New York bound for Genoa, Italy. It carried 1,701 barrels of alcohol, but its human cargo was of far greater emotional value. Onboard were Captain Spooner Briggs, his wife Sarah, and their two-year-old daughter. It was manned by seven additional crewman.
Let’s begin by setting the record straight: Captain Briggs was an experienced seaman and had left a seven-year-old son behind to attend school. There is no evidence of instability, or a tendency towards a lapse in judgment. Rather, he was well-respected by other seamen. There was every reason to assume that with a wife and daughter onboard and a son at home, this was voyage made by a very careful man with everything to lose.
So if there’s no embezzlement or chicanery involved, what happened? Here’s what we know from the ship’s logs: We know it battled heavy storms for fourteen days as it sailed across the Atlantic. Its last post was entered by the captain at 5 am on November 25, thirteen days after setting sail. It is significant that prior to the last entry the ship had changed course and was sailing southward, and that there was a notation of sighting land. (The original logs are gone, so these are the facts from the investigation made at that time.)
Ten days later it was sighted by crewmen aboard the Dei Gratia. Captain David Morehouse hastened to see if the vessel needed help by sending a party to board the ship, only to find it uninhabited. One lifeboat was missing. One of its pumps had been disassembled. Three feet of water sloshed in the hold with the cargo, which was still intact. There remained a six-month supply of food and water. The captain’s sextant, register and nautical equipment had been taken with the captain and were not onboard the ship.
Plausible theories about its fate include the wild and fanciful:
· Mutiny
· Sea pirates
· Attack by a sea monster
· Waterspouts
· Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a short story about the ship in 1884 and postulated it was captured by a vengeful ex-slave. The story was made into a movie by Bela Lugosi, who starred as a homicidal sailor.
The Smithsonian issued a thorough examination of the evidence and dismissed all of these theories. Mutineers would have sailed the vessel away. The cargo was intact, so there were no sea pirates. A sea monster was frankly incredible. The ship was intact and seaworthy, so tornadoes at sea were not the problem. Sir Arthur Conan Dolye’s story was a work of fiction.
To this day no one can fully explain the mystery behind why the ship was abandoned. These are the most current plausible explanations:
1. The ship had been reworked after carrying a cargo of coal. Could the coal have clogged up the pumps and made the ship seem unfit? The hold was so fully packed he might have judged the water in the hold to be more damaging than it truly was.
2. The ship had just changed course after sighted Santa Maria Island. Were they seeking haven for some reason?
Answers we still lack:
· Why was only one lifeboat used? Had the party taken two, they could have carried more food and water.
· If they were in sight of inhabited land, what happened to the lifeboats? Why were the people and every trace of their lifeboats never recorded? Did they meet with a hostile end on shore?
The story of the Mary Celeste continues to puzzle and intrigue historians, who hope to one day unravel the mystery of why the vessel was abandoned and what happened to its inhabitants.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/abandoned-ship-the-mary-celeste-174488104/
https://museumhack.com/mary-celeste/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mary-Celeste