The Mary Celeste: Famous Mystery of the Sea

 

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On this day in 1872, the American merchant ship Mary Celeste set sail from New York for Italy, captained by Benjamin Briggs. But somewhere out in the Atlantic, something went wrong.

And that’s all we really know. The Mary Celeste herself survived: she was found adrift and deserted on December 4, 1872, off the Portuguese  Azores Islands. The ship was undamaged except for some wear and tear from sailing unmanned for 9 days, according to the log discovered on board, in which the last entry was routine. The ship’s papers and instruments were gone, and so was the lifeboat, which appeared to have been tied to the ship, and then cut free. The food and personal possessions of the occupants were left behind.

Obviously, there have been many theories about what happened, which range from plausible to possible to paranormal.

Check out my Weird Wednesday blog post for the whole story and some ghostly writing prompts, such as:

The captains’ curse. The Mary Celeste actually lost three captains to premature death: the other two fell ill while on board. There’s also a theory that Captain Briggs might actually have died before the ship was abandoned, and without his good counsel, the crew were more likely to leave a sea-worthy ship. So you could write about a ship with a particular hatred for captains. Perhaps the ship itself was the killer, or it might have been cursed by someone with a hatred for authority, or malice toward the first captain to die, but the curse unfortunately kept going past him. In any case, the last captain of the Mary Celeste got some revenge: Capt. Gilman C. Parker purposely ran the ship aground in 1884 in an act of insurance fraud.

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