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He had to rethink his ideas after it was pointed out that the Mary
Celeste's cargo was of denatured alcohol, a mixture of ethanol and
methanol similar to methylated spirits, and more likely to kill
than to intoxicate. Unabashed, Flood revised his conclusion to suggest
a conspiracy between the two captains, who knew each other, to defraud
the Mary Celeste's owners. According to this theory, Briggs had
killed his crew just before Morehouse was due to intercept the Mary
Celeste and then stowed away with his family on the Dei Gratia while
Morehouse claimed the salvage rights to the Mary Celeste and the
two scurrilous captains split the money. It was then pointed out
to the hapless attorney general that Briggs part-owned the ship
himself and that the entire salvage money would have been less than
his original investment.
Solly Flood went back to the drawing board and decided that, if
Briggs hadn't been involved, then Morehouse must have killed the
entire crew to gain salvage rights to the ship himself. Eventually,
after many months of slander, the Admiralty stepped in and exonerated
Morehouse of all responsibility, compensating him and his crew.
Oliver Deveau must have read in despair what had been attributed
to him by the newspapers, to which a vengeful Flood had been quick
to leak details of the case. Other theories were also dismissed
since giant sea monsters, despite a penchant for sailors, were not
known for taking a ship's papers and navigational instruments, and
nor were the aliens who had apparently abducted every living being
on board except the cat.
Neither were they picked off the deck one by one by a giant sea
squid, nor blown into the sea by a passing whale that sneezed, and
most clear-thinking people have ruled out any connection with the
Bermuda Triangle as the Mary Celeste's path didn't cross it. Piracy
was also ruled out as nothing of value had been stolen and mutiny
considered unlikely as the small crew of professional and disciplined
sailors were on the short voyage voluntarily and Captain Briggs
himself was known to be well liked by his men. In March 1873, the
court finally had to admit they were unable to determine the reason
why Captain Briggs had abandoned the Mary Celeste, a conclusion
that caused a sensation as it was the first time in history a nautical
inquest had failed find a satisfactory explanation.
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, or 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
000, and 'The Spine-chilling Tale of the Chase Vault', page 000),
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
a first-hand, 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 on to 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 on 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 got 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
Celeste as a vessel of six hundred tons when in reality it was less
than half that size. Finally, it is highly unlikely 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 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 Journal,
a young reporter by name of Lee Kaye interviewed John Pemberton,
another alleged only 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
at 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 then bought a third share in the
boat, intended to be his retirement fund. Briggs was born on 24
April 1835 in the town of Wareham, Massachusetts, and was a man
of strict religious beliefs and a dedicated teetotaller being described
as 'of the highest character as a Christian and an intelligent and
active shipmaster'. After a $14,500 refit, she re-emerged 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 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 2 November
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 the
7 November. According to the captain's log, later found in Briggs's
cabin, the voyage was uneventful until the last entry recorded on
the 25 November, which noted that the ship had reached St Mary's
Island (now called Santa Maria), east of the Azores.
At that time the weather was deteriorating badly and the ship had
been speeding along on a northeasterly wind towards 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 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 25 November and
4 December 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 enquiry 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 although 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, foretopmast 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
fresh water 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, previously reported
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 the Mary
Celeste was 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 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 vapour 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 lifeboats. 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 backwards-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 Disappearance
of the Lighthouse Keepers of Eilean Mor', page 000). 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 have recorded that a major seaquake has
occurred within a short distance of the island of Santa Maria every
year since records began.
On 1 November in 1755, just over a century before the Mary Celeste
was found, an earthquake along the same fault line destroyed the
port of Lisbon in Portugal. Falling buildings and the subsequent
tsunami killed approximately 100,000 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. The 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 25 November 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 25 November
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 after shocks
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 are forced vertically towards
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 Celeste
was wet through and also why the captain's bed was unmade. No doubt
Captain Briggs was thrown awake from his bed to find his crew panicking
at the commotion 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 bilge, sending fumes and gases
roaring around the hull, making for a terrifying noise and the frightened
crew could have removed the hatches to investigate. As the fumes
billowed out, part could have ignited, either by the stove coals
or metal sparks from the hatch lids, creating a blue vapour flash
that wouldn't necessarily have resulted in fire damage. Any amateur
investigator can recreate this effect by removing the lid of an
empty rum or brandy bottle and dropping in a lighted match. The
resulting vapour 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 light to your mum's curtains.
In the circumstances, it is easy to see how Captain Briggs and his
crew could have feared a major explosion of the cargo, believing
the volatile alcohol to be responsible for the ship's unnatural
behaviour rather than a seaquake, something of which comparatively
little was known at the time. Given these conditions, Briggs would
undoubtedly evacuate his family and crew to a safe distance in the
lifeboat and this was obviously done in great haste, the captain
only stopping to pick up his navigational instruments but retaining
the presence of mind to gather 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 be
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 Mary Celeste, with her partly set sails, calm, afloat and
in no apparent danger.
The captain would then have 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 her up 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. Although
the most famous, Mary Celeste is by no means the only ship to have
been found deserted at sea. In April 1849, the Dutch schooner Hermania
was discovered floating off the Cornish coast, near the Eddystone
Lighthouse, without her mast. In this case, the lifeboat was still
firmly lashed to the deck and all personal belongings were in the
cabins. However, the captain, his wife and daughter and all the
crew members were never seen again.
Six years later another ship, the Marathon, was found adrift with
no hands on deck and in perfect condition. So what became of the
most famous ghost ship in history? After being released by the authorities
in Gibraltar, she returned to New York where J. H. Winchester promptly
sold her. On 3 January 1885, she ran on to the razor-sharp rocks
at Rochelais Bank in the Gulf of Gonave and was wrecked. Unfortunately
for her new owner, Gilman Parker, his insurance company decided
to send an investigator to inspect the wreck, before paying his
claim for $30,000. The investigator found the cargo to have no value
at all, made up as it was of cat food, old shoes and other rubbish.
It turned out that Parker had unloaded the small part of the cargo
with value and then had set fire to Mary Celeste. Parker was promptly
charged with fraud and criminal negligence, a crime punishable by
death in 1885.
Then a legal technicality forced prosecutors to withdraw the charges
laid against Parker and his associates and they were released, but
the Mary Celeste still exacted her revenge. Over the next eight
months one of the three conspirators committed suicide, one went
mad and Parker himself was bankrupted and died in poverty. And so
the story of the Mary Celeste ends, leaving us with not only one
of the best-loved and intriguing mysteries in seafaring history,
but also one of the most tragic.
Albert Jack - 2007
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