Mary Celeste
Mary Celeste was an American merchant brigantine discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands on December 4, 1872. The Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia found her in a dishevelled but seaworthy condition under partial sail and with her lifeboat missing. In 1885, her captain deliberately wrecked her off the coast of Haiti as part of an attempted insurance fraud. The story of her 1872 abandonment has been recounted and dramatized many times in documentaries, novels, plays, and films.
About Mary Celeste in brief
Mary Celeste was an American merchant brigantine discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands on December 4, 1872. The Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia found her in a dishevelled but seaworthy condition under partial sail and with her lifeboat missing. She had left New York City for Genoa on November 7 and was still amply provisioned when found. Her cargo of denatured alcohol was intact, and the captain’s and crew’s personal belongings were undisturbed. None of those who had been on board were ever seen or heard from again. The story of her 1872 abandonment has been recounted and dramatized many times in documentaries, novels, plays, and films. The name of the ship has become a byword for unexplained desertion. In 1885, her captain deliberately wrecked her off the coast of Haiti as part of an attempted insurance fraud. The ship was built in late 1860 at the shipyard of Joshua Dewis in the village of Spencer’s Island, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. She was launched on May 18, 1861, given the name Amazon, and registered at nearby Parrsboro on June 10, 1861. Her registration documents described her as 99. 3 feet in length, 25. 5 feet broad, with a depth of 11. 7 feet, and of 198. 42 gross tonnage. She crossed the Atlantic to France in November 1861, and in Marseille was the subject of a painting, possibly by Honoré de Pellegrin, a well-known maritime artist of the Marseilles School.
In October 1867, at Cape Breton Island, Amazon was driven in a storm and abandoned as a derelict. On October 15, 1868, Alexander McBean, a local businessman, sold the wreck to Richard W. Haines, an American mariner from New York, who then spent 8,825 USD restoring it. He made himself captain, registered her in December 1868 as an American vessel, under a new name, Mary Celeste, and made himself the captain of the new vessel. In December 1869, he paid US$1,750 for the wreck, and then spent it restoring it in October 1869 in New York. In November 1869 he sold it for $1,825, then spent the rest of the year restoring it and then sold it to a local mariner for $2,750, then in October 1880 he spent it in a New York auction for $3,000, and it was registered as a new vessel under the new name. In January 1881, she was sold for $4,500, and she was put up for auction at the New York Customs Collector’s Office. In March 1881 she was taken into service as a cargo ship by the American firm of the same name. She sailed to the West Indies, England and the Mediterranean, and was renamed Amazon.
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This page is based on the article Mary Celeste published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
