by Stan Mason
It was considered for the purposes of valuation, that the salvage award would be apportioned from the following figures:
Cargo $36,943.00
Hull 5,700.00
Freight on Charter 3,400.00
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$46,043.00
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If, as was normally the case, the award was held to be fifty per cent, then the Captain and crew of the Dei Gratia could expect to receive some $23,000 to divide among themselves. However, the salvage award was so pitiful the Court made it patently obvious that it was wholly suspicious of the claim made by Captain Morehouse showing its disapproval in its final decision. The Master of the Dei Gratia had strongly believed that he and his crew would receive something like one-half of the total vessel and the cargo; a fifth of the amount was practically an insult. Their own Proctor had pointed out strongly that the crew had taken extreme risk to bring in the derelict, leaving the Dei Gratia short-handed, and pleaded for the generosity of the Court. The Judge, however, refused to be swayed by those arguments and remained completely unsympathetic because of Deveau’s absence before the sailor had finished his evidence. To be fair, no one ever told Deveau he might be required in Court again. Once he had left the witness box, having been examined, he believed his part of the proceedings to be over.
By this time, the allegations published by the New York Sun led the State Department at Washington to institute an inquiry. They wrote to the British Minister, Sir Edward Thornton, who responded on the eleventh of March as follows:
“You will perceive that inquiries which have been instituted into this matter tend to arouse grave suspicions that the Master of the Vessel in question together with his wife and child were murdered by the crew who would seem subsequently to have abandoned the Vessel, and are supposed either to have perished at sea, or to have been picked up by a passing vessel. It is under these circumstances that I have been instructed to communicate the inclosed documents to you, in order that, if the Government of the United States should think it expedient, investigations may be instituted with a view to obtaining some clue to the cause of the derelict vessel having been abandoned.”
The State Department set into motion a hunt for the missing Captain and crew, which began on the twenty-fourth of March, 1873. The vehicle for this operation was the United States Treasury Department which issued the following instructions to all customs officers. Sadly, it was incorrect in no less than three places but the main aim was to find the missing people.
CIRCULAR RELATIVE TO THE BRIGANTINE MARY CELESTE FOUND DERELICT AT SEA
You are requested to furnish this department with any information which you may be able to obtain affording a clue to the discovery of the facts concerning a vessel found on 13th December last, in Latitude 38 degrees 20 N, and Longitude 17 degrees 51. W, derelict at sea and which was towed into the harbour at Gibraltar by the British vessel Dei Gratia and there libelled by the salvors. From the log of the abandoned vessel, she is supposed to be the American brigantine Mary Celeste bound from New York to Genoa, and it is supposed that she sailed from New York and that her Master’s name was Briggs. The circumstances of the case tend to rouse grave suspicion that the Master and his wife and perhaps their child and the Chief Mate were murdered. Many other details concerning the matter are in possession of the department and, if necessary, they will be furnished on application.
William A. Richardson,
Secretary to the Treasury.
Captain Morehouse and his crew indeed had an axe to grind in this matter which emerged more clearly on the twenty-second of February, 1904. It was on that day Mr. A.A. Raven, former President of the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company, visited Yale University to give an address on maritime insurance. The Yale Alumni Weekly, on the second of March, 1873, recorded him to say:
“The Captain and crew of the Dei Gratia received only moderate compensation, being only about 18 per cent on an aggregate value of $47,000 for vessel and cargo. It is not unusual, when derelicts, i.e. abandoned vessels, are picked up at sea, for salvage award of more than twice that percentage to be made to the salvors.”
The insurance adjusters were Jones & Whitlock, Average Adjusters of New York. The amounts insured by American underwriters and those paid out are set out below:
Insured Value Paid After
Adjustment
_____________ __________
Main Lloyds $6,000.00 $568.30
Orient Mutual
Insurance Co. 4,000.00 378.87
Mercantile Mutual
Insurance Co. 2,500.00 236.79
New England Mutual
Insurance Co. 1,500.00 142.07
__________
TOTAL HULL INSURANCE $14,000.00
Atlantic Mutual
Insurance Co.
(Freight Interests) 3,400.00 322.04
__________ ________
TOTAL $17,400.00 $1,648.07
Uninsured loss borne by vessel’s owners
56.83
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$1,704.90
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In consideration for a disaster at sea, and a mystery which would continue into infinity, the insurance companies did not come off at all badly in this particular matter. However, when all was said and done, the ship was still operative, and the cargo intact. It was indeed a strange affair!
The End of the Mary Celeste
The demise of most sea-going vessels in the 1800s was gradual. The stench of rotting timbers and decay set in, and the continuous encrustment of barnacles, the need for new masts, new rigging and sails, caused ship-owners to dispose of the ships in the second-hand market. One would have expected the Mary Celeste to suffer such a fate until broken up in a dock for the benefit of certain timbers, but the old “Amazon” was determined to hog the limelight to the very end. The cargo was delivered to the importers at Genoa on the twenty-first of March, 1873, and the vessel left for Boston on the twenty-sixth of June under Captain Blatchford, arriving there on the first day of September, sailing on the thirteenth of September for New York. An adjustment in the ownership was required as the registration documents were out of order. Captain Briggs was still listed as owning an 8/24th share, and he was now presumed to be dead. Simpson Hart, who had loaned the money to Briggs for the purchase of his share claimed on the mortgage and hoth he and Captain Winchester became joint owners to the exclusion of Sylvester Goodwin and Daniel Sampson, who relinquished their interest very cheaply. But Simpson Hart was not a shipping man and disposed of his holding to a Mr. John Q. Pratt on the tenth of October, 1873.....the latter selling his share to Captain Winchester on the third of February, 1874, leaving Winchester as sole owner of the vessel. His purchase of Pratt’s shares was made for a specific reason, however, as it was his intention to sell the Mary Celeste to a consortium of five people, who refused to enter into any negotiation which inhibited sole ownership. Consequently, on the third of February, 1874, after he had become the sole owner, Captain Winchester transferred all the shares to the consortium with whom the ship remained, carrying cargoes until the twenty-fifth of February, 1880. On that date, the vessel was sold to a Mr. Wesley Gove and several others but no reason is known for the transfer.
The total number of registrations during the twelve years - from the time the ship became a derelict to the very end - was seventeen. In December, 1884, under the command of Captain Gilman C. Parker, she sailed from Boston to Haiti, supposedly with a valuable cargo comprised, inter alia, of expensive cutlery. In effect, an entry in the Maritime Register of the United States Government dated the twenty-eighth of January, 1885, lists the cargo as follows:
“Mary Celeste, Parker, from Boston for Hayti, went ashore on Rochelais Bank, Lon. 73 degrees; lat. 18 degrees 38’, Jan.3. and would probably be total loss. She had the following cargo: 475 bbls. alewives, 135 pk
gs. ale, 64 cases boots & shoes, 10 bbls. bread, 4,000 lbs. butter, 10 bbls. beef, 87 boxes codfish, 66 drums do., 30 coils cordage , 34 cases canned fish, 30 pkgs domestic(s), 50 pkgs. furniture, 10 lbs drums fish, 150 bbls. flour, 75 kegs herrings, 472 boxes do., 500 bbls. do., 15 cases hardware, 460 bbls. mackerel, 209 tubs do., 37 kegs paint, 500 gals. petroleum, 3 bales twine, 5 nests trunks, 2 bbls. varnish, 20 kegs white lard, 21 pkgs. yeast powder, 25 bbls. pork. The master was at Miragoane.”
The back of the register identifies a brief which states:
“Date of surrender January 3, 1885. Where surrendered: Miragoane, Hayti: Cause of Surrender: Vessel lost by stranding on Jan 3, 1885, on the Reefs of Rochelais, near Miragoane, Hayti. Seven on board, none lost.”
It was obvious that the wrecking of the Mary Celeste was premeditated in order to claim insurance monies fraudulently, but the ensuing results turned into a bizarre situation. On the morning Captain Parker wrecked the ship it was a clear day and the sea was smooth. All obstructions and reefs were plainly market on the charts and clearly visible. Therefore, when the wheelman saw the reef he changed course to avoid it. The Captain, noting the action, however, immediately ordered the man to resume his original course. This was challenged but the order was firmly repeated and obeyed, with the result that the vessel went on to the centre of the reef to remain there as a wreck.
At the request of the underwriters, Mr. Kingman N. Putman, a New York surveyor, visited Haiti to investigate the claim. The reason for the underwriters to take such a step stemmed from the suspicions aroused after the Mary Celeste was claimed as lost, when divergencies in the cargo manifest were noticed. One fact in particular concerned the beer which had been stowed on board, in that more bottles had been billed to a barrel than a barrel could possible hold. When Putman arrived in Haiti, he hired a horse and rode from Port-au-Prince to Migroane to examine the vessel. The ship was still on the reef but the ship’s cargo, which had been salvaged, was sold to the United States Consul, a man named Mitchell, for a sum of $500. This was notwithstanding the insurance claim amounted to $25,000! An argument arose between Putman and the Consul, the latter claiming to have lost money on the deal, but the surveyor managed to obtain permission to open some of the cases to examine the goods. In one case, identified as cutlery, and insured for $1,000, there were dog-collars valued in total about $50, while in another container, insured as boots and shoes, were shoddy rubbers costing about 25 cents each. Even the bottles of beer were false, having been filled with nothing stronger than water. Both Captain Parker and the U.S. Consul were clearly in deep trouble!
Putman returned to New York armed with the evidence he had found which was reported to the authorities. He was asked to return to Haiti as a Deputy United States Marshal with powers to subpoena witnesses and to order Consul Mitchell and Captain Parker to return to New York for trial. Parker was soon arrested, but the Consul obtained advance warning of the danger and decided to escape to the woods. This caused a complex problem for Putman to solve who arrived at Haiti for the second occasion. He was well aware that any attempt to seek out and capture the U.S. Consul would cause Press comment and, subsequently, another international incident with the same vessel, the Mary Celeste. After a great deal of deliberation he decided to leave Mitchell to his own devices in the woods and returned to the United States with the Captain.
On the twenty-ninth of March, 1885, the American Press reported that Captain Gilman Parker of Winthrop, Massachusetts, had been arrested the day earlier by the U.S. Marshal on a charge of having purposely wrecked his brig, the Mary Celeste, on a coral reef off Hayti. The wilful wrecking of a vessel - defined as barratry - was an offence which was punishable with death under the laws of the United States. The Captain was arraigned in Court in Boston on the twentieth of April, and was committed to appear in the Circuit Court on the fifteenth of May to answer the charge. The testimony comprised statements given by the crew, including the wheelman, leaving little doubt that the ship was wrecked deliberately and that what was practically a dummy cargo of fish, rubber soles and other cheap goods were put on board and heavily insured. In evidence submitted by Mr. Putman, he told the Court:
“The shippers confessed the part they had played: they had consigned goods of little or no value, grossly over-insured, and had induced Captain Parker to run his ship aground so that she became a total loss and they were able to claim from insurance companies. One firm in particular had recovered no less a sum that $5,000 on a load of rotten fish.”
Despite all the evidence, the Jury disagreed, and a new trial was arranged. However, Captain Parker fell seriously ill and died before August, 1885. Oddly enough, the Mate who had given evidence against him, also succumbed to illness at that time and passed away three months later. One of the shippers committed suicide to avoid further dishonour, and all the firms concerned in the fraud failed shortly after the first trial. The demise of the Mary Celeste was complete. She rotted on the reef at Rochelais until all evidence of her existence had vanished. The finer points of this matter were not fully realised until the thirty-first of December, 1913, when Kingman Putman described his visit to Haiti in the Nautical Gazette. In his summing-up, when observing the death of the Captain, the Mate, the shipper, and of all the firms, he concluded:
“It was all part of the strange fate which appeared to pursue anyone who had anything to do with the business.”
It was definitely the end of the Mary Celeste, but only the start of the legend.
The Final Claim
In 1885, some thirteen years after the salvage enquiry had ended, Solly Flood wrote to Consul Sprague with an unprecedented demand for legal costs from the United States Government for his efforts concerning the Mary Celeste. The Queen’s Proctor had retired by that time and, no doubt, felt that he might be able to secure a tidy sum of money from this remote source. This case had become a total obsession with him and he decided to seek some compensation for his agonies. Consequently, he sent a letter to the Consul, dated the ninth of January, 1885, to display his outstanding nerve, as follows:
Gibraltar, 9th January, 1885
P.S. 20th February, 1985
My Dear Mr. Sprague,
I have the honour to recall to your attention an event in which you have felt no inconsiderable interest. In December 1872 it became my duty as H.M.’s Advocate-General and Proctor for the Queen in Her Office of Admiralty to institute and conduct in the Vice-Admiralty Court of Gibraltar against a vessel and cargo and effects on board, which had been found derelict and brought into the port of Gibraltar by the British Brigantine Dei Gratia. It was alleged and afterwards proved that the derelict vessel was, when found, perfectly seaworthy and to have sustained no damage whatever from the perils of the sea or any accident, or to have been in any danger whatever, and that her cargo was such that under no circumstances could she have foundered, but that she had been wantonly disfigured and damaged for the obvious but ill-disguised purpose of making her appear to have been abandoned as un-seaworthy. She was well found and provisioned. The whole, or at least apparently the whole of the personal effects of the Master, even including his watch, purse, hat and trousers, with braces attached, were found in his cabin. Effects of his two mates and crew, of which some were new and of good quality, were also found on board. The after-hatchway through which access was obtained to the provisions, and the fore hatch through which access was obtained to stores and barrels of alcohol, one of which had been tampered with, were both found open and uncovered, the provision immediately under the open after- hatchway, and the stores immediately under the open fore-hatchway, were found perfectly dry; the deck house and after cabins were found artificially deluged with water. A few inconsiderable marks of violence were found on deck, but as the evidence proved the crew to have been in possession of the vessel for some time longer than the Master, the chief mate, and, as I expect, the second mate, they had ample opportunity to remove appearances of violence had there b
een any. The vessel turned out to be the American Brigantine Marie Celeste valued in her damaged state at Gibraltar at $5,700 for salvage purposes, and her cargo to have been alcohol only which was valued at Gibraltar at $36,943 for salvage purposes, shipped by Messrs. Ackermann & Co., American citizens in New York, for Genoa. The vessel was owned by Mr. J.H. Winchester and other American Citizens. She had been commanded by Benjamin S. Briggs, a brave and experienced American Citizen, and also had on board when she sailed, his wife, the accomplished daughter of an American clergyman and their little girl aged two years. Albert G. Richardson, also a brave and experienced American Citizen, had been her first mate. Her complement had consisted of a second mate and five seamen, of whose nationality and antecedents nothing was then known, but the name of the second mate and the names of four of the five seamen indicated them to have been either Germans or Danes. She had no passengers except the Master’s wife and child, and had had no accommodation for any. Under these circumstances, I felt it necessary to cause repeated and minute surveys to be held on the vessel and on her cargo and to be present during all of them, and to spare no exertions, no pains, and no trouble to discover the fate of all ten persons who had left New York in the vessel and also, whether any, and if any, what, and by whom, any outrage or other serious crime beside that of disfiguring and casting away the vessel, had been committed on board her or after he abandonment. After a prolonged enquiry the vessel was delivered to Mr. Winchester who had the largest interest in her, and had claimed her and made good his claim upon giving security for salvage and the expenses of the Queen, and the cargo was delivered to the representatives of Messrs. Ackermann & Co. who had claimed and made good their claim upon giving security for salvage and the expenses of the Queen, but the effects of the Master, officers and crew not having been claimed remained in the custody of the Marshal subject to the costs and expenses of the Queen and to abide such claims as might be preferred thereto and be established to the satisfaction of the Court, and in default as forfeited to the Queen. The Court having learnt from an affidavit of the Marshal sworn in the cause that you were willing to become custodian of the effects supposed to have belonged to the Master, officers and crew for which neither he nor the Court had convenient accommodation, and to have the care of them on his behalf as Marshal without prejudice to the warrant under which he held them and subject to the jurisdiction of the Court, made an order permitting him to deliver, and you to have the care of them in the manner stated.