Ghost Ships Codexery

Mary Celeste

A merchant brigantine found adrift and deserted in 1872.

Mary Celeste

via Wikipedia: Mary Celeste · see source

The ship was constructed at the shipyard of Joshua Dewis in Spencers Island, Nova Scotia, and launched on May 18, 1861 under the name Amazon.[1]

Quick Facts

Built
1861
Launched
May 18, 1861
Original name
Amazon
Length
99.3 ft / 30.3 m
Breadth
25.5 ft / 7.77 m
Depth
11.7 ft / 3.57 m
Gross tonnage
198.42

Facts from the source article.

How it changed

The ship's keel was laid in late 1860, and it was built of locally felled timber with two masts rigged as a brigantine.[1] In October 1867, the Amazon was driven ashore at Cape Breton Island in a storm and abandoned as a wreck.[2] A major refitting in early 1872 cost $10,000, increasing the ship's length to 103 ft, breadth to 25.7 ft, and depth to 16.2 ft, with a new second deck.[3][4] On October 29, 1872, Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs held four of twelve shares in the consortium that owned the ship.[5]

The Dei Gratia discovered the Mary Celeste adrift on December 4, 1872, with the final log entry dated November 25 and no crew aboard.[6][7] While under the command of John Nutting Parker, the ship struck fishing gear near Eastport, Maine and later caused a brig to sink in the English Channel.[8][9]

What the maker and period sources say

In June 1883, the Los Angeles Times recounted the Mary Celeste story with fabricated details, stating that "every sail was set, the tiller was lashed fast, not a rope was out of place".[10] The November 1906 issue of Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine incorrectly stated that Mary Celeste had drifted near the Cape Verde Islands, about 1400 nautical miles south of where it was actually found.[10] In a 2026 Channel 5 documentary, chemists Jack Rowbotham and Frank Mair from the University of Manchester showed that a quick explosion of ethanol vapors, which would leave no visible damage, might have caused the crew to abandon ship.[11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fay, p. 44; Fay, p. 45 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fay, pp. 49–50; Hicks, "Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew", Random House US Group, 2005, p. 25; Fay, pp. 50–51; Begg, p. 19 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fay, pp. 53–55 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Fay, pp. 199–200; Begg, p. 22; Fay, pp. 53–55 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hastings, p. 13 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Begg, pp. 40–41 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hicks, p. 74 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Begg, pp. 17–18; Fay, p. 48 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Begg, pp. 17–18 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Mary Celeste" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "A Mystery of the Sea: Who Can Explain Why and How the Mary Celeste was Abandoned?", The Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1883, p. 5 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wakley, "Chemists think they know what happened on board the Mary Celeste", Chemistry World, April 8, 2026. facts only, no text reused. chemistryworld.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Mary Celeste (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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