[mary celeste] just the facts, ma’am

Part 1 below concerns events up to, including and after the event and considerable effort has been made to expunge all descriptive adjectives and speculative comments from the record of events.

Part 2 though, is highly speculative and lists theories, official and no, of what could have occurred. I have to admit that after two years of reading now, I’m as baffled as when I started. Based on the evidence below and on any other evidence you may yourself know of, what’s your theory?

The 101-foot, 282 ton brigantine Mary Celeste, was built in 1860, the maiden venture of a consortium of pioneer shipbuilders at the shipyards of Joshua Dewis on Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia. She was originally christened Amazon and was launched in 1861, the year that saw the start of the American Civil War.

Her first skipper, a Scot named Robert McLellan, fell ill and died. Then John Nutting Parker assumed command and skippered the Amazon's maiden voyage, but she ran into a fishing weir off Maine, received a large gash in her hull and had to go to the shipyards for repair. While she was there a fire broke out amidships, bringing Captain Parker's command to an end.

Amazon's first Atlantic crossing went without mishap until she entered the Straits of Dover and collided with a brig. The brig sank, Amazon again went for repairs, and her third skipper went to seek another command.

Following the necessary repairs and the appointment of a new captain, Amazon returned to America, and she ran aground off Cow Bay, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

She was pulled off the rocks and repaired, but appears to have passed from one owner to another, several of whom seem to have gone bankrupt and none of whom derived any good from their contact with the ship. She eventually passed into the hands of J.H. Winchester and Co., a consortium of New York shipowners.

By this time the Amazon had been enlarged, flew the Stars and Stripes, was named Mary Celeste. According to testimony, just prior to this trip, she had been purchased at a salvage auction in New York for $2,600 and rebuilt for $14,000. Her rebuilt condition was confirmed by the crew of the Dei Gratia later when they said, "Her hull appeared to be nearly new."

The latest captain of Mary Celeste was a stern, puritan New Englander named Benjamin Spooner Briggs. He was born at Wareham, Massachusetts, on 24th April 1835, the second of five sons born to Captain Nathan Briggs and his wife Sophia.

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