What happened to the Mary Celeste?

The Mary Celeste was a merchant brigantine found drifting and deserted in the Atlantic near the Azores on 4 December 1872. She had left New York for Genoa on 7 November. Nobody aboard was ever seen or heard from again, and what led them to leave the ship has never been established. Several theories exist, but none is proven. The ship herself went on to sail for another 12 years. [1] [2]

The Dei Gratia found the Mary Celeste dishevelled but seaworthy, under partial sail, with the lifeboat missing. Oliver Deveau and John Wright went aboard and found the sails and rigging damaged and the cargo hatches lifted and lying on deck. One of the two pumps was partly disassembled, and a sounding rod lay nearby. The log slate bore a last entry for the morning of 25 November. [3] [1]

The ship was still amply provisioned, the cargo of alcohol was intact, and the belongings of the captain and crew were undisturbed. Only the ship's papers and Captain Briggs' navigational instruments were missing, which supports the idea that the departure was deliberate. A sword was found in the captain's cabin, but there were no obvious signs of violence. [3] [1]

At the salvage hearings in Gibraltar, officials considered mutiny, piracy by the Dei Gratia crew or others, and insurance or salvage fraud. Frederick Solly-Flood, the Attorney General for Gibraltar, stayed convinced that Briggs and his family had been murdered by the crew. The Royal Museums Greenwich account says evidence against this view steadily mounted. The court found no convincing evidence for any foul-play theory, though lingering suspicion led to a relatively low salvage award. [1] [3]

Other proposals include an explosion or panic caused by alcohol vapours from the cargo, submarine earthquakes, waterspouts, a giant squid and paranormal intervention. The sources describe the more fanciful of these as speculation, and the story has repeatedly been embellished with false detail. [1] [3]

A less sensational scenario was explored in a 2007 documentary and in research reported by Smithsonian Magazine. Researchers concluded that Briggs was about 120 miles west of where he believed he was, probably because of an inaccurate chronometer, so land appeared three days later than he expected. The ship had recently been refitted and had earlier carried coal, and dust and debris could have fouled the pumps. Unable to tell how much water was in the hold, Briggs might have ordered the ship abandoned. The documentary reached no definite conclusion, and this remains a plausible scenario rather than a proven account. [4] [2]

After the hearings the ship was unpopular and was sold at a loss in 1874. She then sailed mainly West Indian and Indian Ocean routes, regularly losing money. In 1885 her captain, Gilman Parker, conspired with Boston shippers to insure a largely worthless cargo and deliberately ran the ship onto the Rochelois Bank off Haiti. The insurers uncovered the fraud. The conspiracy jury could not agree on a verdict, and the defendants withdrew their claims and repaid what they had received. [1]

In 2001 an expedition led by Clive Cussler announced that it had found the wreck. Tree-ring analysis later showed the timber came from trees still growing about a decade after the ship's loss, so it could not be the Mary Celeste. [1] [2]