Mary Celeste (ship)

Good maintenance and good speed despite no one on board are the conditions that the American schooner Ellen Austin found on the half brig Mary Celeste in the Bermuda Triangle. The information comes from the memoirs of Commander Gould, a retired British Navy officer, in 1944. It describes two interactions between a departure date of Friday, Dec. 5, 1880, from London, England, and an arrival date of Friday, Feb. 11, 1881, in New York City, New York.

Benjamin Spooner Briggs is the name of the missing captain of Mary Celeste. The last person known to have seen the captain in question was Burnett, harbor pilot from Sandy Hook, New Jersey. He was paid $40 to escort Mary Celeste through the Verrazano Narrows on Tuesday, November 7, 1872, prefatory to crossing the winter storm-riddled Atlantic for docking at Genoa, Italy, after traversing the western Mediterranean.

The year 1872 is the year that Mary Celeste was found adrift without captain, crew or passengers. The hermaphrodite brig in question was sighted by the crew of the Dei Gratiasomewhere between the Azores and Portugal on Wednesday, December 4, 1872, (nautical time) or Thursday, December 5, 1872 (civilian or local time). It was thought to have been drifting since Sunday, November 24, 1872, since the ship's map has a last course charting of the former date.

The Mary Celeste was a brigantine found in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and under full sail heading towards the Strait of Gibraltar in 1872. The fate of the crew is the subject of much speculation: theories range from alcoholic fumes to underwater earthquakes, and a large body of fictional accounts of the story. The Mary Celeste is often described as the archetypal ghost ship.

In early 1873 two lifeboats ran aground in Spain. One boat contained 1 body and an American flag. The second contained 5 bodies. These 6 bodies were never identified or if they were it was never entered into public records. So we may never know if these people were what was left of the crew and passengers of the Mary Celeste.

Containers filled with raw industrial alcohol are the type of barrels that were on the hermaphrodite brig Mary Celeste. The part barkentine part schooner in question tended to carry as cargo crops and timber. It was therefore unusual that the plucky half brig was expected to transport such a volatile cargo, during such stormy weather as was typical of the northern Atlantic's wintry seascape, all the way from New York to Genoa, Italy.

No, there were no life boats on Mary Celeste after the crew went missing.

South from New York toward the Azores, with scheduled moves eastward into the Mediterranean for docking in Genoa, Italy is the route that the half brig Mary Celeste took in 1872. Benjamin Spooner Briggs, captain at the time and experienced descendant of generations of fishers and sailors, took an unexpected turn whereby the hermaphrodite brig rounded the Azores from the north instead of the south. It was sometime during or subsequent to rounding the easternmost tip of that course that everyone on board disappeared, leaving behind cargo, equipment and possessions.

Genoa, Italy is the port to which Mary Celeste was going. The hermaphrodite brig in question left New York on November 5, 1872, and Staten Island on November 7, 1852, with a cargo of 1,701 barrels of alcohol from the New York-based German merchants Meissner, Ackersman and Company. The $36,000-valued cargo was supposed to be delivered no later than December 6, 1872.

Contracted delivery of cargo is the reason why the half brig Mary Celeste was headed for Italy. The reference relates to a cargo of 1,701 barrels of raw industrial alcohol to be delivered for Meissner, Ackersman, and Company to recipients in Genoa, Italy. The delivery was intended to take place within a month of the hermaphrodite brig's departure from New York on Tuesday, November 5, 1872.

Haitian waters is the location of Mary Celeste. Marine archaeologist Clive Cussler and professional divers John Davies and Mike Fletcher present convincing evidence of finding on Thursday, April 5, 2001, the hermaphrodite brig in question exactly where all calculations, interviews, and records indicate: under the shanty-supporting, shell-built islands in the triangle-shaped Rochelais Reef in the Gulf of Gonâve between Gonâve Island and Tiburon Peninsula. Helsman Ernest Berthold, crewman Jacob English, and first mate Joseph E. Howe testified that Captain Gilman C. Parker had Mary Celeste ram into the reef off Haiti at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 3 [standard time] or Sunday, January 4, 1885 [nautical time].

A children's story and a record album are what constitutes "The Story of Celeste." The creations in question come from the musical career of Kentucky-born vocalist Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 - June 29, 2002). The famous cabaret singer and actress in question is the paternal aunt of Kentucky-born activist, actor, director, producer, and screenwriter George Clooney (born May 6, 1961).

Sometime after 1885 is the date when the ship Mary Celeste sank. Crewmen submitted statements alleging that the hermaphrodite brig deliberately was rammed into the Rochelais Reef off Haiti on Saturday, January 3 (civilian time, from midnight to midnight) or Sunday, January 4 (nautical time, from noon to noon), 1885, by the part barkentine part schooner's last known captain, Gilman C. Parker. Author Clive Cussler and professional divers Mike Fletcher and John Davis were credited with finding metal and wood remains -- in the above-indicated position and consistent with the place and time of Mary Celeste's construction in 1860 and 1861 in Nova Scotia, Canada, -- on Thursday, April 5, 2001.

Animals, food and lumber generally are listed as the cargo on the half brig Mary Celeste. Nova Scotia's lumber emerges as the first cargo and dog collars, melted fat, spoiled fish and worn rubber overshoes as the last. The most famous cargo is the crude, industrial, raw alcohol that the above-mentioned hermaphrodite brig was transporting from New York to Genoa, Italy, at the time of the ship's abandonment and drifting by Wednesday, Dec. 4 (civilian reckoning of the day as midnight to midnight) or Thursday, Dec. 5 (nautical reckoning of the day as noon to noon), 1872.

Erratic course, lack of distress signals and unusual rigging describe what is strange about Mary Celeste. Oliver Deveau, Dei Gratia's first mate, observed the hermaphrodite brig drifting at full sail with one sail hanging, one sail lowered, two sails ripped away, two sails set and the rest furled. There seemed to be nobody on deck to tend the rudder, sails and wheel despite the vessel looking very much like a cargo ship sailing down one of the Atlantic Ocean's busy shipping lanes during a particularly inclement late fall and early winter 1872.

Exposure to rough waters and weather is a description of the happenings to the landing and sailing crew from Captain David Morehouse's Dei Gratia on the ghost ship Mary Celeste. The landing and sailing crew managed to sail the half brig in question from a position off Portugal at 38 degrees 20' North, 17 degrees 15' West Wednesday, December 4 (civilian reckoning of 24 hours from midnight to midnight) or Thursday, December 5 (nautical reckoning of 24 hours from midnight to midnight), 1872 to the Mediterranean Sea port of Gibraltar Friday, December 13 or Saturday, December 14, 1872. It was imperative to survive the extreme storms and severe waves since the part barkentine part schooner had no lifeboat other than the Dei Gratia's landing and sailing party boat.

Nobody knows how old the fictitious Marie Celeste was. The short story J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement reveals nothing of the imaginary brigantine's history. It only tells of fateful events presented as taking place between Monday, Oct. 13, 1873, and Friday, Nov. 14, 1873, and resulting in the derelict ship's towing into Gibraltar by Captain Dalton's Dei Gratia in December 1873.

Abandonment and grounding can be considered answers to any questions about the Mary Celeste incident. The abandonment happened in 1872 while the grounding occurred in 1885. Both incidents jumpstarted legal proceedings that ended in unjustified criticism of the Dei Gratia and Mary Celeste crews in the first case and in sudden termination in the second.

Equipment, papers and people complete the list of what and who went missing from the abandoned, derelict, ghost, mystery ship Mary Celeste. Equipment includes a chronometer and a sextant while papers reference the captain's documents. People refers to the Mary Celeste 10 of captain with daughter and wife, three officers and four seamen.

We simply don't know for sure. The most plausible theory is: part of the ship's payload was combustible. It is very possible that circumstances had occurred that had increased the risk of an explosion; and that the captain decided to ventilate the ship's hold: the hatches were found open. The captain then might for safety's sake in the meantime have everybody board a sloop, tied to the ship with a long rope. If the rope would have slipped, there would have been no way to row back to the ship, since it had been left partly under sail and so was much faster than any sloop could row. The sloop would then drift off to anywhere, and lack of food and especially of drink would finish off the crew in a matter of days.

The Mary Celeste was an American brigantine merchant ship that was found abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean, completely deserted by its crew and passengers of seven, and heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar, on December 4, 1872. One lifeboat was missing but as to why the ship was abandoned is a mystery to this day.

Ten (10) is the total number of officers, passengers and seamen aboard the half brig Mary Celeste. Andrew Gillilng, Edward William Head, and Albert G. Richardson served respectively as second mate, cook and steward, and first mate while Gottlieb Goodschaad, Arian Martens, and the brothers Boz and Volkert Lorenzen were seamen. Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs was accompanied by his daughter, Sophia Matilda, and his wife, Sarah Elizabeth.

Three is the number of captains who owned Mary Celeste. David Cartwright, Richard Haines and James Winchester represent the captains who were owners, not co-owners, at different, not overlapping times. Other captains, such as Benjamin Spooner Briggs, Rugus Fowler, Walter Johnson Robert McLellan, and William Thompson, were co-owners while still other captains, such as Gilman Parker, were neither co-owners or owners.

No, Mary Celeste is not in a museum. Marine archaeologist Clive Cussler and professional divers John Davies and Mike Fletcher present convincing evidence through the retrieval of rotted wood and rusted metal for Haiti's Rochelais Reef as the final resting place of the world's most famous hermaphrodite brig. The three would like to see special status on the order of international landmark registry or world heritage site for where Mary Celeste lies under an artificial, shanty-supporting, shell-built isle in the Caribbean.

It is unknown whether any of the alcohol aboard Mary Celeste was drunk by the crew. But it tends to look as unlikely that crewmen would have brought their own alcohol aboard the hermaphrodite brig in question since Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs was known to be hard-working, honest, and intolerant of drunkenness and recklessness. The cargo was a load of 1,701 barrels filled with undrinkable industrial alcohol, whose volatility may have been evidenced in nine of the barrels being empty, possibly from below-deck explosions.

The Mediterranean port city of Genoa, Italy, is the destination to which Mary Celeste was heading during the hermaphrodite brig's cargo-contracted voyage of November and December 1872. The destination required using shipping lanes southeastward to the Azores and eastward through the Mediterranean. Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs selected the less frequent route just north of the Azores' coastlines instead of the much more traveled southern coast-hugging route.