Mary Celeste: Atlantic Mystery in the Azores Between November 24 and 25, and December 4 and 5, 1872

The Mary Celeste’s paper trail theoretically accesses fact-accumulating and fact-sharing sources. The in-house paperwork of captain, crew, first mate, insurance, maintenance, port, purchase, and sale records accommodate commercial and legal requirements regarding data storage. The first mate’s maps chart the Mary Celeste’s course through November 24, 1872. His receipt book describes as cargo Meissner, Ackersman, and Company’s 1,701 barrels of alcohol for transport to Genoa, Italy. It details all contracted bills, expenses, and receipts. The captain’s log divulges little else through November 24. The crew’s slate documents:

• Cruising at 8 and 9 knots;
• Observing Santa Maria island at 5:00 a.m.;
• Passing the southernmost Azores at 8:00 a.m.

It ends with “Francis my own dear wife Francis N.R.”  

Francis must be:

• Niece-in-law of James Henry Winchester, holder of 18 Mary Celeste shares and owner of New York’s major shipping business, J.H. Winchester & Co.;
• Wife of Albert G. Richardson (1844?–1872?), Stockton, Maine-born first mate and War Between the States (1861–1865) three-year veteran.

The reference to her pulsates with:

• Absence of contact;
• Fear of loss.

Passing ships nevertheless relay each other’s correspondence back and forth to loved ones. Richardson and Winchester family archives remain silent. Briggs family archives contrastingly reveal pre-departure letters from:

• Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs (1835–1872?), holder of 8 Mary Celeste shares, to his mother;
• His wife, Sarah Elizabeth Cobb Briggs (1841–1872?), to mother-in-law Sophia and son Arthur (1865–1931).  

Sailing lists acknowledge the on-board presences of:

• Captain and Mrs. Briggs, with daughter Sophia Matilda (October 31, 1870–1872?);
• First mate Richardson;
• New York-born second mate Andrew Gilling (1847?–1872?);
• Newlywed cook and steward Edward William Head (1849?–1872?), Brooklynite Emma J. Head’s husband;
• Seamen Gottlieb Goodschaad, Boz and Volkert Lorenzen, and Arian Martens of Germany.

No evidence emerges of any letter-writing by or for the seamen, second mate, or steward. The written exchanges between Horatio Jones Sprague (1823–1901), American consul at Gibraltar, and Fohr parish chiefs R.I. Lorenzen and T.A. Nickelsen indeed make clear the lack of communication ever again with:

• Arian’s wife and children;
• Boz’s fiancée;
• Boz’s and Volkert’s mother;
• Volkert’s wife and daughter.

Like on-board record-keeping, the costs of competitiveness and upkeep articulate fact-storing roles. But like letter-writing, their investigation discovers nothing from November 5 to December 5, 1872. Insurance coverage and loan approvals exemplify competition-related costs. Information exists somewhere regarding the non-payment or re-payment of New Bedford, Massachusetts businessman Simpson Hart’s loan to cover Captain Briggs’s purchasing one-third ownership in the Mary Celeste. Its disposition is less forthcoming than information about insurance covering the ship’s $16,000-valued refit and $36,000-valued freight by policies with:

• Atlantic ($3,400), Mercantile ($2,500), New England ($1,500), Orient ($4,000) Mutual Insurance Companies;
• Maine Lloyds ($6,000).

Such clarity reflects:

• The cargo’s delivery to purchasers before month-end, March 1873;
• The companies’ payments for salvage, December 1872-March 1873.

The costliness and frequency of upkeep depend upon:

• Cargo, crew, and travel wear-and-tear;
• Government surveyor inspections;
• Owner resourcefulness.

Historians uniformly describe the brigantine’s racing hard and heavy with coal, corn, fruit, and lumber loads throughout the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean, as:

• The Amazon for Joshua Dewis, 1861-1867;
• The Mary Celeste for Richard W. Haines, 1868-1869, J.H. Winchester, 1869-1874, David Cartwright and Harrison, 1874-1880, and Wesley Gove, 1880-1885.

They detail refits of:

• 1869, in the amount of $9,000+ on the brigantine’s bottom, keel, rigging, sails, and spars;
• 1872, to the tune of $11,500 to the ship’s boom, cabins, deckhouse, hold, hull, lazaret, masts, windows, and yardarms.

They question the seaworthiness of:

• Halyards;
• Lifeboats.

The trail quickly grows cold since off-board letters and on-board logs do not discuss upkeep-related issues. And yet the Mary Celeste’s suspected abandonment possibly ensues from:  

• Aged, frazzled towing halyards;
• Damaged or non-existent lifeboats;
• Debilitating, explosive, industrial alcohol.

All of the above-mentioned maintenance-related factors theoretically incline the Mary Celeste’s fact-accumulating crew and fact-sharing passengers toward interactions with:

• Passing vessels;
• Proximitous lands.

The known information sources of the time -- consular reports, local newspapers, and ship’s logs -- indicate no such interfaces. There indeed is no known, verifiable admission by anyone on land or sea with regard to knowledge of or witness to:

• The unexplained vanishing of ten people;
• The unmanned sailing of the Mary Celeste for nine days thereafter.

Mystery-loving amateurs and professionals in the twenty-first century benefit from:

• Comfortable travel arrangements;
• Digitized information sources.

Elucidation of the mysteriously abandoned, drifting Mary Celeste demands both. The modern world’s greatest maritime mystery indeed does not defy the problem-solving skills of modern-day science- and technology-savvy sleuths. Its illumination inheres in:

• Accessing the Gibraltar court records regarding the Mary Celeste’s salvage;
• Consulting the testimony of the Dei Gratia’s crew regarding the Mary Celeste’s boarding and sailing, December 4/5-13, 1872;
• Retracing the Mary Celeste’s course, November 5-December 4/5, 1872;
• Visiting the Azores.

Less adventurous but equally enjoyable is armchair-sleuthing with:

• Clive Cussler’s and Craig Dirgo’s The Sea Hunters II;
• Brian Hicks’s Ghost Ship;
• Jane Yolen’s The Mary Celeste.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

The Mary Celeste's destination was Genoa (Genova), largest seaport in Italy.
Genoa is sited on the Ligurian Sea, an arm of the Mediterranean Sea.
NASA satellite image of Genoa, Liguria region, northwestern Italy: NASA, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Genova.jpg

The crew's slate on the Mary Celeste documents Azores' southernmost island of Santa Maria as sighted at 5:00 a.m. and passed at 8:00 a.m.
"Hundreds of miles off the coast of Portugal, the nine islands of the Azores chains are stretched out over the Atlantic Ocean." Left to Right: Faial, Pico, Sao Jorge, Graciosa, Terceira, Sao Miguel, and Santa Maria.
image obtained May 1, 2003, via NASA Terra satellite's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS): Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC, Freely available for re-pub/re-use, via NASA Visible Earth @ https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/67051/the-azores

Albert Richardson: Mary Celeste's First Mate
Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Richardson_first_mate_Mary_Celeste.JPG

Sarah Briggs with her son Arthur Stanley Briggs (September 10, 1865-October 31, 1931), who, remaining onshore to attend school, did not accompany his parents and young sister on their fatal voyage.
Arthur Stanley Briggs (September 10, 1865-October 31, 1931)

"Amazon of Parrsboro - J.N. Parker Commander - entering Marseille November 1861"
painting commissioned by Captain John "Jack" Nutting Parker, Amazon's second commander
Mary Celeste as Amazon: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Celeste_as_Amazon_in_1861.jpg

Mary Celeste's abandonment issues: two sails were set; one was hanging; one was lowered; two were ripped away; the remainder were furled.
black-and-white closeup of tricolor engraving by Rudolph Ruzicka (June 29, 1883-July 20, 1978): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Celeste_engraving.jpg

Unraveling the mystery of the Mary Celeste includes consulting the testimony of Dei Gratia's crew concerning the dates of December 4/5-13, 1872.
The crew discovered the Mary Celeste on the afternoon of December 4. In nautical time, the start time for a day is noon. So the ship log records the discovery as taking place on December 5.
Dei Gratia at Messina, Italy; from a painting by Giuseppe Coli in April 1873

from left to right: marine archaeologist and adventure novelist Clive Cussler, Lee Wilcox, Warren Lasch and Clive's second wife Janet Horvath
Sailor's Creek Battlefield Historical State Park, Rice, south central Virginia: Virginia State Parks (vastateparksstaff), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/vastateparksstaff/10819050195

Benjamin Spooner Briggs, Mary Celeste's captain, was descended from seafaring family committed to the vast and wide sea, "wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great creatures." (Psalm 104:25)
undated portrait of Benjamin Briggs: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Briggs_captain_of_Mary_Celeste.jpg

Sophia Matilda (born October 31, 1870) is believed to have perished with her parents, Benjamin Spooner Briggs (born Apr 24, 1835), Mary Celeste's captain, and his wife, Sarah Elizabeth Cobb Briggs (born April 20 1841).
undated image of Sophia Matilda Briggs

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