Mary Celeste (ship)

No, the half brig Mary Celeste is not fake. Depictions, descriptions and documents prove the serviceability of the hermaphrodite brig in question between 1861 and 1885. Court records verify that the part barkentine part schooner was left to drift for unknown reasons in November and December 1872 and to sink into the waters off Haiti in 1885.

The famous mystery of the Mary Celeste revolves around the unexplained disappearance of its crew without signs of struggle or distress. Some theories suggest piracy, mutiny, or sabotage, while others point to natural disasters like water spouts or seaquakes. The case remains unsolved to this day, fueling speculation and debate among historians and maritime experts.

The mystery of the 'Mary Celeste' has never been definitively solved. The ship was found adrift in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872 with no crew on board, leading to various theories about what happened, including piracy, mutiny, and natural disasters. However, no conclusive evidence has been found to explain the disappearance of the crew.

No, there were no survivors on the ship Mary Celeste. No one knows what happened to them except that they just disappeared.

There is no such person as the Captain Briggs of the Mary Celeste conspiracy. Benjamin Spooner Briggs is the name of the half brig in question's most famous captain, whose fate and that of his daughter, his wife, three officers and four sailors remain unknown almost 150 years after the disappearance of the Mary Celeste 10 in November or December 1872. No evidence reveals any conspiracy by any of the Mary Celeste 10 even though the Gibraltar court proceedings officials claimed most of the salvage away in 1873 by demonizing the captain and crew of the victim ship Mary Celeste and of the rescue ship Dei Gratia.

Dispersed physical evidence and lack of confessions or eyewitness testimonies are reasons why Mary Celeste is unsolved. The mystery swirls around the hermaphrodite brig in question's accidental or deliberate abandonment between the Azores and off Portugal's Atlantic coastlines. Proceedings were conducted by the Admiralty Court in Gibraltar, but Judge Cochrane refused to conduct searches of the Atlantic and Mediterranean and tended to confine investigations to the captains, crew, owners, and passengers of Dei Gratia and Mary Celeste, to the enrichment of the Court and the vilification of all people then connected with both ships.

A lack of physical evidence and of relevant documentation is the reason why the mystery of the ghost ship Mary Celeste still is unsolved. Nobody knows the motivations or whereabouts of the half brig in question's captain, two passengers, three officers and four seamen. The hermaphrodite brig lies in pieces under an artificial island off Haiti while the combination of court documents and of ship records does not explain the part barkentine part schooner's abandonment between the Azores and Portugal or the Mary Celeste 10's disappearance.

The ship was originally named the "Amazon" when it was built in Nova Scotia in 1861. It was later re-registered in the United States as the "Mary Celeste." The reason for the name change is unclear, but it may have been a common practice to rename ships for various reasons, such as to avoid confusion with other vessels or to honor a person or place.

Contracted cargo, personal possessions and ship equipment were the objects on the derelict, ghost, mystery ship Mary Celeste. The landing and sailing party from the rescue ship Dei Gratia wondered about the water-logged states of floors and furnishings and over the abandoned musical and sewing equipment, smoking pipes and weather gear, and the displaced stove.

Half-brig and hermaphrodite brig are the terms used to describe the kind of ship that Mary Celeste was. The nineteenth-century vessel in question represents a merger in the transition period between the prominence of barkentines and of schooners. It therefore tends to be described as a half or hermaphrodite brig that is part barkentine and part schooner.

Two hundred eight-two tons is the registered weight for the half brig Mary Celeste. The above-mentioned hermaphrodite brig was known for carrying maximum cargo and minimum crew throughout a 14-year career, from 1861 to 1885. As much space as possible was set aside for such hefty loads as animals and lumber.

The inspiration for one enduring mystery and two high-profile legal proceedings are reasons why the half brig Mary Celesteis famous. The hermaphrodite brig in question was the cause of a investigations in 1872 and 1873 for being found abandoned and yawing halfway between the Azores and Portugal and in 1885 for being rammed, accidentally or deliberately, into the Rochelais Reef off Haiti while cargo that did not match the documentation. Neither investigation resulted in satisfactory answers, particularly in the case of the earlier incident since nobody knows what happened to make the Mary Celeste 10 of captain with daughter and wife, three officers and four seamen disappear without a trace.

Yes, the half brig Mary Celeste is named after a real person. The hermaphrodite brig's name means "Celestial Mary" or "Heavenly Mary" in reference of Our Lady Mary, whom National Geographic Magazine calls "the most powerful woman in the world" in its December 2015 issue. It was common during -- and before -- the cargo-carrying career of the part barkentine part schooner in question, from 1861 to 1885, to incorporate religious references in ship names, such as Dei Gratia ("Thanks to God"), the name of the ship whose captain and crew first saw Mary Celeste yawing, mysteriously and without anyone aboard, between the Azores and Portugal in December 1872.

No, no cat is known to have been aboard Mary Celeste. The captain and the crew of Dei Gratia mentioned finding no life form upon boarding, and sailing to Gibraltar, the half brig found yawing halfway between the Azores and Portugal in December 1872. Inspections conducted by the crew of Dei Gratia and subsequently ordered by Gibraltar's Admiralty Court revealed evidence of human occupation -- through abandoned personal possessions and such physical traces as the imprint of Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs' two-year-old daughter Sophia's body on a bed's blankets -- but not of animal presences.

Captain David Reed Morehouse and First Mate Oliver Deveau of the cargo ship Dei Gratia in 1872 and author Clive Cussler and professional divers John Davis and Mike Fletcher in 2001 are the discoverers of the half brig Mary Celeste. In the first case, the discovery of the hermaphrodite brig yawing halfway between the Azores and Portugal was accidental since nobody admits to having known that the Mary Celeste 10 of captain with daughter and wife, three officers and four seamen had become separated, unwillingly or willingly, from their ship loaded with cargo, equipment and personal possessions. In the second case, the discovery was the result of a deliberate search of Haiti's Rochelais Reef, where the part barkentine part schooner was alleged to have been shipwrecked deliberately in 1885.

"Heavenly bitterness" is a possible meaning of the name "Mary Celeste." The feminine proper name "Mary" possibly originates in the Hebrew מרים for "bitterness." The feminine proper name "Celeste" traces its origins back to the Latin caelestis for "heavenly."

Ghost ship is the nickname for the half brig Mary Celeste. The hermaphrodite brig in question qualifies as a ghost ship for having been found abandoned and drifting halfway between the Azores and Portugal Wednesday, Dec. 4 (civilian reckoning of days as midnight to midnight) or Thursday, Dec. 5 (nautical reckoning of days as noon to noon), 1872. The part barkentine part schooner also receives such designations as abandoned, derelict and mystery ship because of the above-mentioned mysterious, still unsolved events.

A half or hermaphrodite brig partway between a barkentine and a schooner describes what Mary Celeste looked like. The Canadian-built, Canada- and United States-registered ship had billeted bowsprit, hydrodynamic hull, schooner-like mast with triangular fore- and aft-sails, single deck, shipboards packed with rock salt, square-rigged foremast and squared-off stern. The cargo ship prompted cost-saving, profit-making measures because of maximized load holds and minimized deck quarters.

No, the crew of the half brig Mary Celeste never was found, and their families never were known to have been contacted directly or indirectly by survivors. The captain's son, Arthur, was left behind to attend school and therefore grew up an orphan. The captain's brother Oliver was planning to meet Benjamin in Italy in December 1872 and retire from seafaring after returning to New York. But his ship, Julia A. Hallock, was sunk on the lonely return voyage to New York on Wednesday, January 8, 1873, when the vessel's volatile load of oil exploded in the Bay of Biscay off Spain, where Oliver died four days later, two hours before rescuers arrived in search of survivors.

The Mary Celeste, a Canadian built ship, registered in New York was a 100 ft. brigantine, 282 ton vessel owned by James H. Winchester, Sylvester Goodwin, and Benjamin Spooner Briggs.

After setting sail from the Northeast it headed south and was found abandoned and floating by Gilbralter in So. America. The crew was headed by part-owner Captain Benjamin Briggs, a 38 year old American, with his 30 year old wife Sarah Elizabeth Briggs and their 2 year old daughter Sophia Matilda Briggs.

The rest of the crew was:First Mate Albert G. Richardson, American, age 28.

Andrew Gilling 2nd Mate, Danish, aged 25.

Edwin Wm. Head, Steward and cook, American, 23 years old.

Volkert Lorenson, Seaman, German, 29 years old.

Arian Martens, Seaman, German, 35 years old.

Boy Lorenson-Seaman, German, 23 years old.

Gotlieb Gondeschall-Seaman, German, 23 years old.

Acquaintance with the ship's captain and course and familiarity with the ship are reasons why Captain David Reed Morehouse of Dei Gratia was able to recognize Mary Celeste from a distance. Ships captains knew one another and socialized with each other's families in the hard-working, honest, tight-knit sailing communities along the northeastern United States of America and southeastern Canada. The two captains met for dinner before Mary Celeste's departure for Genoa, Italy, and they planned to meet in Messina, Sicily, after each delivered their respectively volatile cargoes of industrial alcohol and petroleum.

Dei Gratia is the name of the ship whose captain and crew discovered the half brig Mary Celeste drift in the Atlantic Ocean. It turned out that the captains of the two ships knew each other, were following similar Atlantic to Mediterranean shipping routes from New York and were planning to meet after delivering their respective cargoes in Italy in December 1872. It was for the above-mentioned reasons that those on board Dei Gratia("Thanks to God") recognized the yawing ship with tattered sails as the hermaphrodite brig Mary Celeste.

Ten people are known to have disappeared from the half brig Mary Celeste. The disappearances took place in November 1872 sometime after or while the hermaphrodite brig in question was passing the Azores. The course was a bit odd since typical shipping routes rounded the Azores off the archipelago's southern coasts whereas Mary Celeste was traveling off the northern shorelines.

Sometime after Friday, Nov. 14, 1873 is the date when the fictitious Marie Celeste was found. The imaginary brigantine in question surfaces as the setting for maritime crimes and mysteries in the short story J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement. The fictionalized account tells readers of the first paragraph that Captain Dalton's Dei Gratia towed the derelict ship Marie Celeste from latitude 38 degrees 40' North, longitude 17 degrees, 15' West into the Mediterranean Sea port of Gibraltar in December 1873.

The Mary Celeste was a ship that was found adrift in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872 with all crew members missing. It remains a mystery as to what exactly happened to the crew, as there were no signs of struggle or distress on board. The ship's discovery has led to numerous theories and speculations over the years.