The Mary Celeste

by Stan Mason

  Why it should have been a pirate vessel which took the crew and left their valuable possessions behind is not divulged. Thankfully it was the last attempt by the author on the subject.

  Next on the scene was Lt. Commander Rupert T. Gould. R.N. who wrote ‘Mystery of Mary Celeste’ published in Shipping Wonders of the World in 1936. Commander Gould was a well-known writer and broadcaster on mysteries....especially those occurring at sea. He could not accept the theory that a scare of fire and explosion would have left so little trace behind it. His own opinion supported that of Deveau.....the Mary Celeste had been abandoned in a panic, under a mistaken impression that she was leaking badly. Since Captain Briggs was an unlikely participant in either the faulty sounding of the ship’s well or the panic that followed, Gould concluded that he was no longer there. His absence could have been due to heart failure, accident, or being swept overboard. Thus, when the moment came, no one was there with the ability to act promptly and sensibly. The crew took to the boat, possibly without food or water, while the ship simply sailed away. Subsequently, the long boat was wither swamped or smashed to pieces on the shore of Santa Maria. The Commander pointed out that something of this nature had nearly happened to Captain Cook’s Endeavour in 1770, and might explain a much later puzzle....the arrival of the schooner Marion J. Douglas off the Scilly Isles in 1919, still under sail, her crew having abandoned her near the Newfoundland Banks under the impression that she was sinking.

  ***

  In May, 1936, Canadian Magazine published ‘Question Mark of the Sea’ by T. Burton-Robinson, which could not support the story of John Pemberton but found no other explanation as satisfying. On the twenty-sixth of September, 1936, the Boston Globe entitled an article ‘Why was the Marie Celeste Abandoned?’ As no solution was offered, and the question had been an enigma for some sixty-four years, one wonders why such an article was presented to the public. In the following year, on the seventh of March, 1937, the story of W.F. Martin was printed in the Sunday Dispatch as ‘The Most Baffling Sea Mystery of All’, claiming the honour to have baffled Mr. Martin as well when the contents of the article were examined. The next day, the New York Sun expounded many inaccuracies which had been extracted by their reporter, Robert Wilder. Two months later, on the seventeenth of May, 1936, the Daily Herald distributors were despatching copies of the newspaper throughout Britain which contained Captain Crocker’s version.

  Arthur Crocker had the distinction of being a renowned Hull barge skipper but he had been at sea in his early years. He declared that the Mary Celeste had been boarded shortly after her abandonment by the crew of the Kentishman; a vessel on which he was engaged as the cabin boy. Although he did not venture any acceptable facts as to why the ship had been abandoned, or how the Dei Gratia came to bring the vessel into Gibraltar, he claimed to possess documents from the Mary Celeste. More fantastic was his unmitigated gall, in coming forward after such a long period of time had elapsed, not to help to solve the mystery but to claim reward for salvage from Lloyds’ of London. The Daily Express ran the following story on the same day:

  “Grey-bearded Arthur Cocker, skipper of the barge Humber Lady, plying between Hull and Sheffield, says he has documents which may be able to throw new light on the fate of the ship Marie Celeste, one of the world’s greatest sea mysteries. The Mary Celeste was found in mid-ocean in 1872, shipshape and seaworthy, but with no one on board. Mr. Cocker, who claims to be the only man alive who had any first-hand connection with the mystery, has made an application for salvage money on the grounds that he has hitherto undisclosed documents and letters in his possession. He will have his application heard by a firm of underwriters in London on Wednesday. He told me the documents were taken from the cabin of the Mary Celeste saying: ‘I was a cabin boy in the Kentishman, one of the grain ships racing with the Mary Celeste from New York. My skipper was Tobias Cooper, and I was making my first voyage. I shall always remember coming across the Marie Celeste gamely riding the swell, but with not a soul aboard her. Her bows were towards England, her sails wet, and everything aboard in good order, except that there was evidence she had been abandoned in a hurry. A bloodstained hatchet was found half buried in the main- mast but the documents and letters I have not been seen by any officials.’

  Captain Cooper’s theory was that some one on board had gone insane, killed two or three of the crew, had been killed in his turn, and that the crew became frightened when they saw other vessels on the horizon and took to the boats. Not unexpectedly, he gained nothing except to dishonour his name by the fastidious claim.

  The death of the widow of Mate Richardson occurred at the end of June 1937 which was reported in an article in the Bangor Daily News on the second of July, 1937 by Henry Buxton. He was encouraged to follow-up this item and, in October 1937, produced an article full of inaccuracies. In between these articles, although there was sufficient news of the rising Nazi regime and precipitant war, the New York Times decided to print a summary of the mystery and theories on the first of August, 1937. Over a year later, in September 1938, the Reader’s Digest obtained permission to publish excerpts from a book entitled ‘Log of Bob Bartlett’ under the heading ‘The Deep’s Deepest Mystery’. Sadly, the work was a travesty of all the added errors on the subject, no less the fact that the number of the crew was increased to thirty hands. In 1939, Felix Riesenberg wrote ‘The Mary Celeste’ which had just as little merit as the ‘Log of Bob Barlett’. It was stated that the food in the galley-pots had been cooked to a crisp, leaving one to suppose that by the grace of God the vessel never caught fire. The author latched on to one item which had never been mentioned before. There was an eye-witness in Gibraltar in 1873 who had examined the derelict (from a distance) and was aware of the situation at that time. He was Captain Marcus T. Tracey who was convinced that the fumes given off by the alcohol were strong enough to convince the Captain and his crew that an explosion was imminent. No one could say what happened to them but that was the reason put forward for the ship to be abandoned.

  On the ninth of July, 1939, The People newspaper printed an article headed ‘Great Sea Mystery Solved’ by Roland Wild, which had been written by Commander A.B. Campbell, a well-known broadcaster of sea stories and a member of the Brains Trust, a highly intellectual programme produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. He strongly supported the Pemberton story and sallied forth boldly as follows:

  “After Captain Briggs had committed suicide, the Mate went ashore with two shanghaied men taking the log and the necessary navigating instruments. Ultimately, there were left on the Mary Sellars the three men from the Dei Gratia - and myself. I was lined up with them and confronted by Captain Morehouse. “You wouldn’t welcome a Board of Inquiry, would you?” he said. “No, sir,” I answered. “Then forget you ever saw the Mary Sellars except from the deck of the Dei Gratia!” he went on. “You never left this ship. Pemberton, I’ll write you down as a passenger on my ship from New York. Mr. Mate, send a prize crew over to the derelict I’ve found!” The prize crew wisely described the “derelict” Mary Sellars exactly as they found it. There was no need for them to add the details about finding “signs of a struggle” and the hot coffee in the cups, or the wet shirts on the line, but they did so since they were giving an actual picture of what they saw.”

  This was extremely strong stuff for the Commander to publish in such detail.

  Also in 1939, Marjorie Dent Candee wrote ‘New Light on an Old Sea Mystery’ published by Marine Journal. An attempt was made here to summarise the facts and to submit a theory, always considered weak, concerning the emergence of yellow fever on board the vessel. No account is made of the absence of any comment in the ship’s log however, or any cogent reason why no evidence existed of the remains of the last dying man..... because no one was found on board.

  An American publication, Yachting, produced an article by Dr. Oliver Cobb.....’The Mystery of the Mary Celeste’.....in February 1940. The lates
t effort not only corrected minor errors which had crept into his earlier works but advanced the abandonment concerning the explosion a little further, however it contributed nothing more to the mystery. This was to be Cobb’s final major article and broke a link with the past, for he was the last person directly associated with the crew of the Mary Celeste to come to the public gaze. In the same month, the New York Herald Tribune declared that Dr. Cobb’s theory carried conviction but “the Mary Celeste like the Flying Dutchman seems forever proof against sheer verisimilitude”.

  The Maritime Register published a poorly written article on the seventeenth of July, 1940, and the Second World War took its share of public attention for the next two years. On the nineteenth of April 1942, the Sunday Dispatch astounded the public with the revelation entitled ‘I Have Solved The Mystery’. The author, Commander Campbell, of the Brains Trust, provided a deeper version of the Pemberton story. It had apparently been told to a sailor named Pike in Sydney, Australia, who confirmed that when the Mary Celeste was boarded, the fire in the galley was definitely burning brightly. He followed Pemberton’s story exactly:

  “One day the gale blew to hurricane strength. Briggs had the woman kept below, battened in his cabin. The ship was making very bad weather of it and pitching like a frightened colt bucking. But through the howling of the wind and the roaring of the terrible seas that woman could be heard. Suddenly, a tremendous wave struck the ship, hurling her over almost on to her beam ends. There was a crash, a scream then no more singing or piano playing. Briggs heard the scream and, rushing aft, peered through the sky light of his cabin. The piano was sliding back and forth across the small cabin. It had broken adrift and, as it came into view, Briggs saw his wife’s hand protruding from underneath. He yelled for a deck-hand to bring a crowbar and dashed into the cabin. The two men at last managed to prise the heavy piano off the poor woman, but she was crushed to death. Pemberton said that as soon as the woman was killed the storm abated. All that night Briggs sat with the body of his dead wife in his arms. He drank heavily, and in the first watch called for a deck-hand. Between them they opened Number Two hatch and got up a barrel of alcohol. This they carried to the cabin, and Briggs assayed the gruesome task of forcing the body of his dead wife into it, for he wanted to carry her to Europe. He had a crazy idea that the Mate had frayed the strands of the rope holding the piano to the bulkhead and was, in a way, the murderer of his wife. From then on the voyage became more and more tragic. The men, learning that a corpse was in the ship, refused to work until it was thrown overboard. This Briggs refused to do and attacked Hullock, the Mate. In the fight that ensued Briggs was knocked unconscious, bound and placed in the Mate’s cabin while the body of the woman was given a burial at sea. When Briggs recovered he was so demented at the loss of the body that, with a scream, he jumped overboard after his wife. A boat was lowered but nothing was found of him................”

  The tale continued with a tone of real drama right through to the end but it was only a theory.....and not a very good one at that!

  The Modern Masters

  The time had arrived for the introduction of the masters. This was started with the publication of a book in limited edition by Charles Edey Fay. Mr. Fay’s work may be considered to be a masterpiece with regard to this mystery and will remain the highest authority on the subject for many years.....if not for ever. Through the offices of the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company, where he was Vice-President, he was able to examine old records, allowing him to ascertain most of the true facts prior to the voyage. With this advantage, he pursued information from Gibraltar to enable him to write a superb book enhanced with illustrations, photographs, and copies of documents. At last, in Mr. Fay’s work, ‘The Mary Celeste: The Odyssey of an Abandoned Ship’, the public were able to learn the true facts before and after.....but two difficulties emerged with regard to the tale. Firstly, only one thousand and ten books were issued which meant that the information was unlikely to be read widely. Secondly, Mr. Fay made no attempt to provide a solution to abandonment, based on the premise that the book was entirely factual, which was the truth. He did attempt to explain one sub-mystery however, relating to the reason why the Mary Celeste was found by the Dei Gratia in that particular location, having drifted unmanned for ten days. He quoted the theory of Dr. Cobb who wrote to him in May 1941.

  “As the vessel sailed away after the change of wind which is reported to have come about this time (and being headed easterly with a northerly wind), there were three sails drawing, foresail, lower topsail and upper topsail. The foretopmast staysail and jib, being set on the port side, would not be of much use except as they would tend to prevent the vessel from coming into the wind and so keep her more steadily on her course. From 25 November to 5 December, northerly winds prevailed. The speed would be 3 to miles per hour with ordinary winds, but the course sailed would be far from straight. She probably went easterly at about two and a half miles an hour, or, say, 60 miles per 24 hours, for nearly eight days - or 480 miles. Then came a sudden change of wind - a squall perhaps. She came into the wind shipped a sea (which accounted for the water in the galley and most of that in the hold, as the fore hatch was off) - lost her foresail and upper topsail, and then filled away on the star- board tack. The jib and foretopmast staysail were not set to draw, and the yards had worked around so that the lower topsail would draw on the starboard tack. She was now headed Westerly. If she went Westerly for two days at 2 miles per hour, a total of 96 miles, the next distance covered would be 384 (480 less 96) miles, approximately the distance of 378½ between the probable point of abandonment and the point of actual discovery.”

  This offered an explanation for the derelict to have sailed on her exact course for ten days and denies the presence of anyone on board during that period. In reality, however, it is only one more theory to add to the mystery.

  By 1943, Commander Gould, now employed in the Admiralty’s Hydrographic Department, who had broadcast on the mystery before, referred to it in a radio series called ‘The Stargazer Talks’. He reviewed some of the theories and amended many of the errors and misconceptions, although it is difficult to determine why his efforts should have made any impact at the time when sea tragedies had been occurring almost on a daily basis for over three years.....in wartime. Perhaps that was exactly the reason for the story to lapse for exactly eleven years.

  In 1954, the Evening News published an article in a series entitled ‘The World’s Strangest Stories’. The story written by Dudley Pope concerned the Mary Celeste but, while the contents were concise, the facts were written in a style to incite a degree of sensationalism, as follows:

  “All the bunks were neatly made up - with one exception. One pillow carried the impression of a child’s head: Briggs daughter Sophie. Briggs’ small stock of ready cash was apparently untouched, and so were several trinkets (including a gold locket) His clothes were neatly stowed away in drawers. Everything was normal except that the Captain, his wife, daughter and officers had vanished. Although the ship’s log was still on board, there was no trace of the ship’s papers. These would have included bills of lading, muster lists and bills of health. Nor was there a chronometer or sextant aboard. A very worried Morehouse searched the galley. Everything was in order except that the cook had vanished. With Deveau he went forward to the foc’sle. Seaman’s chests were still where they were normally stowed. Washing was still hanging up to dry and razors were still bright and sharp. Tobacco and pipes were lying around. Everything was normal - except that the crew had vanished.”

  At least Mr. Pope claimed that the galley fire was out, and he acknowledged that the long-boat was missing. Nonetheless, his theory of a long sea chase was a wild guess. But he was the only person to suggest that Captain Morehouse left his own vessel to examine the derelict.

  In August 1955, the Evening News returned to the mystery again.....this time in the wake of flying saucers claimed to have been seen by thousands of pe
ople. With science fiction gaining ground quickly, the imagination of the public was primed to receive, and often accept, the weirdest, wildest, most incomprehensible solutions to any vague occurrence. It was not surprising therefore that an article with the unusual title of ‘Snatched in Space’ written by M.K. Jessup, appeared in the newspaper. Professor Jessup was employed at Michigan University as an Instructor in Astronomy. He had written a book called ‘U.F.O.’ which developed a theory that many inexplicable disappearances of persons could be accounted for by visitations of aliens from outer space. He suggested that such a possibility could explain the mystery of the Mary Celeste. The Professor advanced his solution, stressing that the sudden disappearance of people at lonely spots at sea was not unusual, and no apparent cause was assignable. The open seas provided an easy catching place and these disappearances were impossible to explain.....except that the direction was upwards! The upper rigging of the Mary Celeste had been slightly damaged. Apart from that, there was no note of disarray or struggle. Damage aloft was a common feature of these events and clearly indicated activity above the ship or at least above its decks. It led to the belief.....as far as the Professor was concerned.....the people on board that particular vessel were levitated by an intelligent force from above. Professor Jessup was forced to admit, however, that the motive the space visitors had for kidnapping crews from ships must be ‘a subject for pure speculation’. This theory was enough to silence the mystery for a further three years until 1958 when Harold T. Wilkins published a book entitled ‘Mysteries Solved and Unsolved’. This was an expansion of his article printed in the Quarterly Review in 1931, but it failed to obtain more than a passing interest. Edgar Lustgarten, a writer and broadcaster, with a reputation for summarising facts on mysteries, wrote a summary in the Sunday Express in September, 1961, but the next professional was already waiting in the wings in the guise of Rupert Furneaux. The reputation of Furneaux focused on his ability to reconstruct the facts at the bottom of many mysteries and provide plausible answers on a professional basis. His book ‘What Happened on the Mary Celeste’, published in 1964, did not intend to outshine the excellent work of Charles Edey Fay. Quite the reverse because it draws heavily upon it. In his own words, he gives his reason for embarking on this mystery: