by Albert Jack
It was Solly Flood's rantings in court that alerted the English media to the mystery of the Mary Celeste. When news reached London, a certain young doctor took a keen interest in the reports, using them in a short story, “J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement.” The yarn, published in January 1884 by the prestigious Cornhill Magazine, featured a mystery boat called Marie Celeste, not Mary Celeste, captained by a man called Tibbs, not Briggs. Many features of the fictional account are close to the true story of the Mary Celeste. Equally, many details—such as the half-eaten breakfast, and the abandoned boat in perfect condition floating serenely on still waters—were a figment of the writer's imagination. And as the imagination belonged to the young Arthur Conan Doyle (who also crops up in “Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden,” page 101, and “The Spine-chilling Tale of the Chase Vault,” page 39), the creator of Sherlock Holmes, it was extremely convincing. With his appealing mixture of fact and fiction, Conan Doyle had inadvertently created a mystery that would occupy thousands of minds over the next century and provoke endless hours of debate.
Just when the conspiracy theories surrounding the Mary (not Marie) Celeste were beginning to die down, an interesting new lead emerged. In 1913, Howard Linford came across some old papers of Abel Fosdyk, a friend of his who had recently died. Among them was what claimed to be an eyewitness account of what had happened to the captain and crew of the Mary Celeste. According to this account, Abel Fosdyk, due to unfortunate circumstances, had had to leave America in a hurry and had persuaded his good friend Captain Briggs to stow him away on the Mary Celeste. He also describes how Briggs had asked a carpenter to install a new deck-level on board so that his wife and daughter would have a viewing platform away from the dangers of a working ship's deck. Fosdyk then tells how Briggs, while at sea, became involved in a good-natured argument with two of the crew about how well a man could swim while fully clothed and to conclude the matter all three jumped into the calm water for a race. Unfortunately, they were then attacked by passing sharks. When the rest of the crew raced up onto the new temporary deck to see what the commotion was, it promptly collapsed, throwing everybody to the sharks. Everyone apart from Fosdyk himself, that is, who clung to the platform, which drifted to the coast of Africa where he was saved. According to Fosdyk, he had been unable to tell the story during his lifetime for fear of being recognized and hauled back to America.
However, Fosdyk had gotten many of his facts about the ship and crew wrong. He claimed the crew were entirely English when in fact the crew list confirms four were German. Also, he described the Mary Celestes a vessel of six hundred tons when in reality it was less than half that size. Finally, it is highly unlikely that Briggs, a responsible sea captain, would jump fully clothed into the sea with two of his crew, leaving the rest of his men, his wife, and his two-year-old daughter on board to fend for themselves should the three swimmers run into trouble. Especially as, given the set of the rigging when the boat was discovered deserted by the Dei Gratia, it must have been sailing at a speed of several knots at the time, leaving the swimmers far behind. Whether Fosdyk invented the story and left it to be discovered among his papers upon his death, or whether his friend Howard Linford created the myth, is unknown.
Nevertheless, when The Strand Magazine published the papers in 1913, they raised more questions about the mystery than they answered. Then, in the late 1920s, in Chambers's Journal, a young reporter by the name of Lee Kaye interviewed John Pemberton, another alleged sole survivor of the Mary Celeste claiming to be able to reveal the shocking truth of what had really happened to the captain and crew. The public demanded to know more and the press eventually tracked Pemberton down and published the story alongside a photograph of the old sailor. Lawrence Keating turned the story into a book, The Great Mary Celeste Hoax (1929). The book was a worldwide bestseller until it was revealed that the journalist Lee Kaye, the sailor John Pemberton, and the author Lawrence Keating were all one and the same. The photograph of Pemberton that Keating had given the press was of his own father.
But setting all the hoaxes and theories aside, what really did happen to the Mary Celeste? Let's consider the evidence in a bit more detail.
In 1861, the first ship to emerge from the yard of Joshua Dewis shipbuilders on Spencer Island, Nova Scotia, was christened the Amazon. Launched as the American Civil War was gathering pace, she proved to be trouble right from the start. Her first captain, Robert McLellan, died before the ship went anywhere. Her second captain, John Nutting Parker, sailed her into a weir in Maine and during the subsequent repairs she caught fire. The ship passed through many hands with equal bad luck before being bought by J. H. Winchester & Co. of New York for $2,500 during 1871. Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs bought a one-third share in the boat, intended to be his retirement fund. Briggs was born on April 24, 1835, in the town of Wareham, Massachusetts, and was a man of strict religious beliefs and a dedicated teetotaler; he was described as “of the highest character as a Christian and an intelligent and active shipmaster.” After a $14,500 refit, the ship reemerged in New York's East River proudly bearing a new, hopefully luckier name. The rechristened Mary Celeste was ready for her maiden voyage.
In 1872, Briggs prepared to take his new ship to Genoa with a cargo of denatured alcohol (intended for use by the Italians to fortify their wines). He enlisted his first crew, engaging Albert Richardson, a Civil War veteran who had served twice before with Briggs, as first mate. Second mate Andrew Gilling and steward Edward William Head were also of solid and reliable reputation. The four ordinary seamen were all German, two being brothers who had recently survived a shipwreck that had destroyed all of their possessions.
On Saturday, November 2, 1872, after the barrels of alcohol had been loaded and made secure, Captain Briggs is known to have dined with his old friend Captain David Morehouse, skipper of the Dei Gratia, who had a cargo of petroleum to transport to Gibraltar a little over a week later. The two ships would be taking an almost identical route across the Atlantic, although the two men did not expect to see each other again before they returned to New York. As the weather was particularly stormy in the Atlantic, Captain Briggs was forced to wait before he risked venturing out on the open sea, and he finally set sail on the afternoon of November 7.
According to the captain's log, later found in Briggs's cabin, the voyage was uneventful until the last entry recorded on November 25, which noted that the ship had reached St. Mary's Island (now called Santa Maria) in the Azores. At that time the weather was deteriorating badly and the ship had been speeding along on a northeasterly wind toward the Azores. Captain Morehouse later testified that these strong winds soon turned into a torrential storm with gale-force gusts. This may explain why Captain Briggs had sailed the Mary Celeste to the north of St. Mary's Island in the hope of finding some relief from the harsh weather. Nothing else is known of the fate of the Mary Celeste or her crew, and nothing is known of their whereabouts between November 25 and December 4, when the crew of Dei Gratia found the Mary Celeste adrift halfway between the Azores and the Portuguese coastline. However, the official evidence provided at the subsequent inquiry in Gibraltar provides plenty of clues.
Oliver Deveau, the seaman in charge of the boarding party, found no lifeboat aboard the Mary Celeste, despite the generally accepted belief that the lifeboat remained secured to the deck, which added to the intrigue. There may have even been two lifeboats on board when the ship left New York. He found that the front and rear cargo hatches had been removed and placed on the deck with sounding rods nearby, suggesting the hold was being measured for water intake, or perhaps being aired, at the time the crew disappeared. Only one pump was working, and there was a great deal of standing water between the decks, with another three and a half feet in the hold. However, despite his noting that the ship was a “thoroughly wet mess with the captain's bed soaked through and not fit to sleep in,” Deveau declared the ship seaworthy and sound enough to sail around the world in his view.
He also recorded that al
though some of the rigging and the foresails had been lost, they had not been lashed properly and might have come adrift at any point. The jib, the fore-topmast staysail, and the fore lower topsail were set and the rest of the sails were all furled, suggesting the crew were already making ready to raise anchor and were in the process of setting the sails at the time they disappeared. There was ample freshwater and food in the galley, but curiously the heavy iron stove had been knocked out of its retaining chocks and was lying upturned on the deck.
A large water barrel, usually held in place, was loose and rolling free, and the steering wheel had not been lashed into position (normal procedure when abandoning ship). There were strange cuts on the rail and hatch where the lifeboat tied to the main hatch had been axed free, rather than untied, and part of the railing had been hacked away to allow the lifeboat to be launched quickly. The apparently bloodstained sword had, in fact, been cleaned with lime, which had oxidized the blade red. Solly Flood had known this, but chose to withhold that information from the court. Finally, and mysteriously, the ship was missing the American flag so proudly displayed as she left New York. It is clear that the Mary Celestewas abandoned in great haste, but the question is why Captain Briggs would desert a perfectly good ship for a small lifeboat. What happened on board to cause an experienced captain and crew to jump off the ship and into a tiny lifeboat, where they would be in far greater danger, when it must have been obvious the Mary Celeste was in no danger of sinking?
James H. Winchester, part owner of the ship, suggested at the time that the cargo of raw alcohol could have given off powerful fumes and that this might have gathered in the hold and formed an explosive cocktail. He speculated that a spark caused by the metal strips reinforcing the barrels rubbing against each other could have ignited this, or that perhaps a naked flame used to inspect the hold could have caused a vapor flash, not strong enough to create any fire damage but frightening enough to suggest to the captain and crew that the whole cargo was about to explode. Furthermore, Oliver Deveau stated at the salvage hearing that he thought something had panicked the crew into believing the ship was about to sink and so they had taken to the lifeboat. The theory fits the evidence almost perfectly, but does not explain all the water found on board or the heavy water butt and iron stove being knocked out of their secure fastenings. The clock with backward-rotating hands was not as mysterious as first thought after Deveau explained that it had been placed upside down, evidently by mistake.
A more recent theory, though, has at last provided a far more credible explanation as to what happened on board that morning—one that even the ingenious Conan Doyle would not have dreamed up. Not a waterspout or tornado at sea, but a seaquake (see also “The Mysterious Disappearance of the Lighthouse Keepers of Eilean Mor,” page 90). Could an offshore earthquake finally provide the answer mystery lovers have spent over a hundred and forty years searching for? The United States Naval Research Laboratory has recorded that a major seaquake has occurred within a short distance of the island of Santa Maria every year since records began. On November 1, 1755, just over a century before the Mary Celestewas found, an earthquake along the same fault line destroyed the port of Lisbon in Portugal. Falling buildings and the subsequent tsunami killed approximately one hundred thousand people. The section of ocean bed known as the East Azores Fracture Zone is thirty to forty miles southwest of Santa Maria, while approximately twenty miles northeast of the island lurks the Gloria Fault. This area is one of the seaquake capitals of the world, and the Mary Celeste was berthed right on top of it on the morning of November 25, 1872.
Dr. Lowell Whiteside, a leading American geophysicist, was asked in an interview to confirm if a seaquake might have taken place near Santa Maria on November 25, 1872. Whiteside started by pointing out that as seismological instruments were not then available, the only earthquakes recorded would have been the ones that were strong enough to be obvious, or in which there had been survivors. He went on to confirm: “The Azores is a highly seismic region and earthquakes often occur; usually they are of moderate to large size.” He then added: “An 8.5 magnitude seaquake did occur in the Azores in late December 1872 and that was recorded. This was the largest in the area for over one hundred years and it is probable that many large foreshocks and aftershocks would have occurred locally within a month either side of this event.” The 8.5 magnitude earthquake in December 1872 was reported on every island of the Azores, such was its scale, but foreshocks and aftershocks would not necessarily have made the news and therefore would not have been recorded.
Newly armed with evidence of a major earthquake and “highly probable” foreshocks at exactly the time Mary Celeste was known to be in the area, investigators appeared to have hit upon a perfect solution to the mystery. A seaquake would cause a vessel the size of the Mary Celeste to shudder violently and, when directly over the fault line, to bounce up and down as the waves were forced vertically toward the surface. This would explain the topsails being partly set, as the two crew members high in the rigging would certainly have been thrown off and into the sea. Other sailors have witnessed craft caught in a seaquake and report that at times the ship would be completely surrounded by a wall of water, explaining why Mary Celestewas wet inside and also why the captain's bed was unmade as well as soaked through. No doubt Captain Briggs was thrown awake from his bed to find his crew panicking at the com motion that would have appeared without warning and from a previously calm sea.
The violent bucking would have dislodged the heavy stove and water butt, and sent hot ash and smoke around the galley. The thundering noise would have been terrifying and the whole event something even an experienced crew like the one on Mary Celeste would never have been through. Nine barrels of alcohol could easily have been damaged in the process, causing nearly five hundred gallons of pure alcohol to spill into the hold. Suspecting damage to the barrels, the crew may have removed the hatch to the hold to investigate. As the alcohol fumes issued from below, they could have been ignited, either by the stove coals or metal sparks from the hatch lid, creating a blue vapor flash that wouldn't necessarily have resulted in fire damage. Any amateur investigator can re-create this effect by removing the lid of an empty rum or brandy bottle and dropping in a lighted match. The resulting vapor flash will often force the match straight back out. Placing rolled-up paper balls in the bottle will also prove that no burn damage is caused by such an event. Old sailors called this trick “igniting the genie.” But if you want to try it at home, then do it outside—and don't set fire to your mum's curtains.
Under the circumstances, it is easy to see how Captain Briggs and his crew could have feared that the cargo was about to explode and think that they should abandon ship immediately. They may even have believed the volatile alcohol rather than a seaquake—something of which comparatively little was known at the time—was in some way responsible for the ship's unnatural behavior. Given the perceived threat, Briggs would undoubtedly have evacuated his family and crew to a safe distance in the lifeboat, and this was obviously done in great haste, the captain only stopping to gather up his navigational instruments and the ship's papers and registration documents. Whether deliberately or by accident, the lifeboat was not secured to the mother ship by a length of rope, as would have been normal in the case of evacuation.
But the drama would have soon been over and the confused crew may well have sat in the lifeboat watching the Mary Celeste, with her partly set sails, calm, afloat, and in no apparent danger. The captain would then have had a big decision to make: either head in the lifeboat to Santa Maria Island and explain why he had abandoned a perfectly seaworthy ship with its valuable cargo on the evidence of some strange bouncing motions and a few ghostly blue flashes, or start after his ship in the hope of catching up with her and regaining command. What has been rarely connected to this story is the fact that in May the following year, fishermen discovered a badly damaged raft washed ashore in Asturias in Spain, with five badly decomposing bodies and an American flag
on board. For some investigators this proves Captain Briggs attempted to catch up with his ship in the lifeboat, with tragic consequences.
Without the inventive fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle, with his half-eaten breakfast, sleeping cats, or delicately balanced reels of cotton, the story of the Mary Celeste is not as ghostly as it seems. The theory that she was caught up in a frightening seaquake and abandoned would seem to silence any conjecture about supernatural goings-on. No doubt, however, various storytellers or creative Hollywood minds will bring new theories to our attention in the continuing debate about the fate of Mary Celeste's crew. Perhaps they will reintroduce aliens, hungry sea monsters, or a giant man-eating bird of prey, but for this investigator the answer is found in the violent seaquake that caused Captain Briggs to abandon ship and then drift to his death with his wife, baby daughter, and remaining crew.