The Mystery Of The Mary Celeste (February/March 1981 | Volume: 32, Issue: 2)

The Mystery Of The Mary Celeste

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Authors: Ormonde De Kay

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February/March 1981 | Volume 32, Issue 2

Early in the afternoon of December 4, 1872, at a point about midway between the Azores and Portugal, the Nova Scotian brigantine Dei Gratia was proceeding on a southeasterly course when her master, David Reed Morehouse, sighted a sailing ship on his port bow, to windward. Through a glass he perceived that she was another brigantine, beating northwest under very short canvas. As the gap between the ships narrowed, he was unable to make out any people on the stranger. He ordered a boat lowered and sent first mate Oliver Deveau, with second mate John Wright and a seaman, to investigate.

Rowing up to the silent ship, the men read the name Mary Celeste on her bow, and on reaching her, Deveau and Wright clambered onto her deck. The investigators soon confirmed that there was not a soul on board. The brigantine’s one boat was gone. Both her fore and lazaretto hatches were uncovered, and her hold, containing hundreds of wooden barrels marked “alcohol,” held water to the depth of three and a half feet. The ship’s jib and foretop staysail were set, but the foresail and upper fore-topsail had been blown away, the lower fore-topsail was flapping loose, and the main staysail lay sprawled atop the forward house; all the other sails were furled.

More interesting to Deveau and Wright than the disorder wrought by the elements were the many evidences of human order to be seen. The captain’s chronometer and sextant, the navigation book, and the ship’s register were missing, but the log book lay on the desk in the mate’s cabin and the log slate, or running log, on the cabin table; the final entry on the latter gave the Celeste ’s position at 8 A.M. , November 25, as six miles northeast of Santa Maria, easternmost of the Azores. The ship’s stores contained provisions for six months and ample drinking water. In the seamen’s quarters forward, and by the berths amidships, occupied until recently by the Celeste ’s cook and two mates, were sea chests packed with clothes. The captain’s cabin likewise contained clothing, stowed in boxes and hanging from hooks, including, besides masculine attire, dresses, a pair of woman’s overshoes, and “articles of child’s wearing apparel; also child’s toys.” A melodeon stood opposite the captain’s bed, which had been slept in—by a child, Deveau guessed. Under the bed Deveau found a sheathed sword with faint discolorations on its blade.

At the end of half an hour the Dei Gratia ’s mates returned to their ship. Captain Morehouse was particularly concerned about the fate of the Mary Celeste ’s people since her master, Benjamin Briggs, was a friend: indeed, Morehouse may have dined with Captain Briggs and his pretty wife at New York’s Astor House the night before they and their two-year-old daughter Sophia started to sea on November 7.