History's A Disaster

The Ghost Ship Mary Celeste

• Andrew

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A silent ship in open water, a missing crew, and a century of wild theories—this is the story that made “ghost ship” part of our vocabulary. We pull the lens wide, starting with the Mary Celeste’s earlier life as the Amazon, a fast, carvel-built brigantine whose career seemed shadowed by bad luck: a captain’s sudden death, collisions, a grounding, and a salvage. When Benjamin Briggs steps aboard as owner-captain, he brings discipline, family, and a small, trusted crew to carry denatured alcohol from New York to Genoa. The plan is routine; the Atlantic is not.

We follow the Dei Gratia’s eerie encounter with the Mary Celeste: sails ragged, rigging loose, cabins soaked, one hatch secured, lifeboat gone, and no bodies. The logbook offers no menace, the hold has water but not doom, and navigation instruments are missing from the captain’s cabin—clues of a deliberate evacuation. From there, we step into Gibraltar’s slow-motion courtroom theater. Attorney General Frederick Solly-Flood chases mutiny and murder, but the evidence refuses to cooperate. Broken compass glass, scattered galley gear, and alleged blood give way to the simpler forces of storm and time. The court praises the salvors, awards a thin payout, and leaves the central question open.

We confront the theories that never die—pirates, sea monsters, aliens—then test the ones that might. A disabled pump, rough seas, and a misread of flooding would rattle any captain. More compelling is the vapor risk from nine damaged alcohol barrels. A modern lab demonstration shows how a pressure wave flash can erupt without soot or charring, exactly matching the ship’s clean surfaces. Picture the call: lower the boat, tow astern, wait out the fumes, and return. In worsening weather, a towline parts, and caution becomes catastrophe. No villains, no melodrama—just the unforgiving math of seamanship.

If you love maritime mysteries, careful debunking, and the human choices behind famous legends, this deep dive is for you. Hit play, subscribe for more history without the hype, and leave a review to tell us your own Mary Celeste theory.

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Special thank you to Lunarfall Audio for producing and doing all the heavy lifting on audio editing since April 13, 2025, the Murder of Christopher Meyer episode https://lunarfallaudio.com/


SPEAKER_00:

There's something about Mary. Don't know what it is though. Can't quite put my finger on it. People have been wondering the same thing also for over a hundred years. And of course, the Mary I'm talking about is the Mary Celeste, one of the most famous ghost ships in nautical history. People have also been asking, what happened? I'm Andrew, and this is History's A Disaster. Tonight we are diving into what is arguably the most famous ghost ship, the Marie Celeste. And tonight's episode is brought to you by the law offices of Shyster, Charlatan, and Swindler. Are you behind on rent? Is your boat about to get refilled? Then you need the law offices of Shyster, Charlatan, and Swindler. They'll help you fill out those fake insurance claims and get you the money you need today. Don't wait, act now. Now the Marie Celeste was originally called the Amazon under British registration. Construction began in late 1860 at the shipyard of Joshua Dewis in the village of Spencer's Island on Nova Scotia. The keel of the Marie Celeste was laid out first since it is the bottom of the ship and the main foundation that the ship is built on. Kind of like a building. You lay down the foundation and build up from there. The keel was built from locally obtained Canadian lumber alongside two masts, and it was built to be a brigantine. Using skills honed over hundreds of years, the Marie Celeste was Carvel built, which means that the hull planks were laid edge to edge and fastened to a rigid frame, forming an extremely smooth and watertight surface. With the planks flushed as opposed to overlapping, the ship was billed as being more secure and reliable than most others. These brigantine ships had been an extremely popular ship since the 1500s, so a good shipyard would have no issues building one, especially in North America, where it was the second most popular ship behind the sloop. Brigantines are a two-masted ship that could be ran by sail or oar and were quicker and more maneuverable than a sloop, making them popular with pirates and the navy for things like recon or anything that would require a ship to get in and out quickly. The only downside was they didn't have the durability of a warship. Once completed, the Amazon was 99.3 feet long by 25.5 feet wide and had a depth of 11.7 feet and weighed in at 198 gross tons. So it was a fairly big ship at the time, and it was originally owned by a group of 10 men, with one of them, Robert McClellan, serving as its first captain. Its maiden voyage was planned for June 1861, and it was to carry a load of timber from Nova Scotia to London. Captain McClellan oversaw the loading of the cargo to ensure the lumber was properly stored and loaded the day before the ship was set to sail. During the loading, Captain McClellan started to get sick. Not long after it set sail, the ship turned around and returned to Spencer's Island. After its return, Captain McClellan died of pneumonia on June 19, 1861. With all the money invested in the ship and cargo, they just couldn't give up. So John Nutting Parker took over the captain's role and the ship once again left to complete its first trip. However, Captain McClellan's death was just the harbinger of the bad ship to come. While passing through Eastport Maine, the Amazon struck and destroyed some fishing equipment. The rest of the trip to London was uneventful. However, when they left London, they smashed into and sank a brig in the English Channel. Captain Parker would keep command of the ship for the next two years, mainly working the profitable West Indies trade route. On one of his trips to France, the ship would be included in a now famous painting by an unknown artist in November of 1861. In 1863, William Thompson took over as captain. He enjoyed a quiet, profitable few years as captain. It was quiet until October of 1867 when a storm overwhelmed the ship off Cape Breton Island. Unable to see in the storm and the winds making the ship hard to control, they ran aground. The Amazon was heavily damaged, so the crew abandoned ship and left it behind as a shipwreck. And apparently it was not a complete wreck. Alexander McBean found the ship in the middle of October and made the decision to salvage the derelict ship. He didn't actually want the ship to use. He planned to salvage it and flip it for a quick buck. By 1868, it was sold to Richard Haynes for$1,000, which is about$22,000 today. Haynes turned around and dropped another$9,000 to have the damaged ship repaired and renamed it the Marie Celeste when he registered it in New York City. He was not a very successful captain, and since he borrowed almost all the money used to buy and repair the ship, he fell behind in repaying the money he owed. The people he owed eventually got tired of waiting for him to make good on his debt and repo the Marie Celeste. They had no interest in it. They just wanted their money. So they sold the ship off to get their money back to James Winchester and a small group of shareholders who would turn around and drop another$10,000 on the ship, refitting and making it larger. The rebuild extended its length to 103 feet and its width to 26 feet. They increased its depth, or its height, by more than 5 feet by adding another deck to the ship. By October 1872, Winchester was the major shareholder with 6 shares, which was half of the shares. Of the six remaining shares, four were held by Benjamin Spooner Briggs, who would now captain the ship. Benjamin Briggs was born on April 24, 1835, in Wareham, Massachusetts. He was one of seven children and followed in his dad's footsteps, who was also a sea captain. He learned how to sail aboard his dad's ship as soon as he was old enough to sail. In 1862, he passed an exam for the American Shipmasters Association, earning him a certificate. He was an excellent bookkeeper, keeping detailed records of his receipts and expenses throughout his career. He married his cousin, Sarah Elizabeth Cobb, in September 1862. He had his own schooner named Forrest King, and they took it across the Atlantic for their honeymoon. In 1865, they had their first son, Arthur, who would outlive the rest of his family, surviving until 1931. They had a second son in 1869 who would not survive infancy, and their last two kids were both daughters. Sophia Briggs was born in 1870, and their final child, born in 1872, did not make it past infancy. Their family home was known as the Rose Cottage, and the land still remains in the family today, although the original cottage was knocked down so they could build a bigger home in its place. Now his wife Sarah loved the seas as much as he did and would often join him on trips to Europe along with the kids. However, life at sea was rough. After a lifetime of crossing the Atlantic, Briggs considered quitting and opening a hardware store with his brother. This idea would not last long. By 1872, he became interested in the Marie Celeste. He bought his shares in the ship and began to make his own modifications. As the captain, he was able to make changes, so he redesigned it to accommodate his wife and daughter. His son was being left with his grandmother at Rose Cottage so that he could continue his education. Once the ship's remodeling was finished, it was time for it to start making the owner some money. Its first voyage was planned for October 1872. The crew was to take barrels of denatured alcohol from New York to Genoa, Italy. With the commission set, Briggs began hiring a crew. He settled at a small crew of seven, since that's all that was needed for a ship of this size. Albert Richardson was brought on as first mate, having worked with Briggs before. Andrew Gilling, a Danish sailor, was second mate. Edward William Head was hired as the ship's steward and cook, and the remaining four sailors were all Germans. Arian Martens, Gottlieb Goodschul, and two brothers, Bolkert and Boz Laurensen. With the crew hired, Briggs headed to Pier 50 on October 20th. He needed to oversee the loading of more than 1,700 barrels of denatured alcohol. Since they had a lot to load and not a lot of space, it took over a week to get the ship loaded up. During the loading, Briggs wrote to his mother often with no other form of communication. They wrote a lot back then. He was satisfied with how everything was going and reported no issues with the loading or with the crew. With everything loaded, they launched from the pier on November 5th, moving to New York Harbor. However, with the storm brewing, they stopped near Stanton Island to wait for the seas to calm before heading out. They had to wait two days before everything calmed down before Briggs gave the order to head out. While the weather had calmed, it still wasn't great. The water was choppy and the trip across the Atlantic was rough. As the Marie Celeste was setting sail, the Digrucia was gloating up to make the same run out of Hoboken, New Jersey. Captain David Morehouse oversaw the loading of petroleum onto his ship destined for Genoa, Italy. Eight days after the Marie Celeste left, the D Grucia followed roughly the same route across the Atlantic. Three weeks after leaving port, the D Grascia caught up with the Marie Celeste and was bobbing aimlessly in the water with only three sails rigged. No one came out on deck as Captain Morehouse signaled the ship. Since no one came out, Captain Morehouse sent first mate Ola DeVu and second mate John Wright over in their little rowboat to check it out. As they got closer, they noticed the sails were in rough shape, with some of them missing, and the rigging was fucked up with ropes hanging all over the place. Once on the ship, they ran into other issues. Like only one of the three hatches, the main hatch, was secure. The single life raft on the ship was gone, and there was no one on board. All ten people who had left New York were missing. They continued to look around, looking for any signs of what had happened to the people or signs of why they would have left the ship since it was obviously still floating and not at risk of sinking. They did find a few signs of problems. The compass had been shifted from where it should have been and its glass was broken. Down in the hold, the ship had taken on about three and a half feet of water, which is a lot of water, but not enough to really be a problem for a ship this big. Next, they headed to the cabins, where they found the last log entry, which was stored in the mate's cabin. Disappointingly, the last entry did not shed any light on what had occurred. It just showed that the crew and passengers were still aboard nine days earlier and they had sailed roughly 400 nautical miles since then. There was no mention of any problems with the crew, pirates, other ships, or anything else. As far as the log showed, things had been going pretty much as expected. They looked around the other cabins, but nothing seemed out of place, besides everything being extremely wet. The only other place where there was any indication that something was wrong was in the captain's cabin. Personal items had been tossed around the room. His sword was under the bed, still in its sheath. It probably fell to the floor and slid under the bed because of the choppy motions of the ship. His personal papers were also scattered about the cabin. The other items that weren't where they were supposed to be were the navigation instruments that Brakes kept in the room and the documentation for the ship, apart from the logs that had been found in another cabin. There was no obvious signs of life on the ship. There were no interrupted meals, no food being cooked, and no fires. There was no clear indication that something violent had taken place. There were no bodies or large pools or spatters of blood. Apart from the items in the captain's cabin and the compass, everything else seemed to be properly stowed. There was no sign that a fire had broken out or that the ship had been attacked. Even the cargo was still mostly intact and secured below deck. All of the signs pointed to the crew and Briggs family getting in the lifeboat and leaving of their own free will. DeVaux and Wright left the Marie Celeste and returned to the Degracia to report their findings. This left Moorhouse with a major decision. What should be done with the ship? Just leaving it floating on the water as it was could be dangerous to other vessels. Plus, taking it with them could bring in a tidy sum of cash for the captain and crew. Maritime law allowed for anyone who salvaged a ship to be given a large portion of the ship's worth and the amount of sale of the cargo it carried. So, obviously seeing dollar signs, Morehouse decided to bring the ship in. After all, it was going to the same location, which was roughly 600 nautical miles from where they were. The only issue was they would have to split the crew up between the two ships. While running both ships with the skeleton crew wasn't impossible, it would slow them down significantly. Instead of just a day or two of sailing, it would take over a week to reach Gibraltar. Once they made it to Gibraltar, the Marie Celeste was impounded until a salvage hearing could be held to determine what had happened to the ship, and how much, if anything, Captain Morehouse and his crew would be paid for salvage. This hearing and investigation was a slow process that would take months. James Cochran served as judge over the hearings. Frederick Sally Flood, the Attorney General for Gibraltar, headed up the investigation into the Marie Celeste. Under his orders, people were sent aboard the ship to check it out. Obviously, with the lack of modern technology, there was probably a lot of things they were unable to find. Plus, all the water on the ship could have wiped out a lot of shit, but they made do with what they had, like bloodhounds. But the water damage and exposure to the sea air for a couple of weeks would have fucked up their ability to detect anything. Plus, a skeleton crew had spent more than a week on the Marie Celeste, so things were not exactly as they had been when the ship was found. Still, a small team was sent aboard to see what they could determine based on the state of the ship when it pulled into the port. Inspector John Austin was in charge of this and was joined by diver Ricardo Portunato. Now, Sally Flood, who was often described as a stubborn, egotistical shithead, believed something had happened on the ship that led to the disappearance of crew and passengers. He was so convinced of this, he ran the investigation into the ship like a criminal investigation. He couldn't believe the crew had just left without being forced to do so by someone else. As a result, there was some bias in the initial assessment. There were some marks on the deck they claimed came from either a saber or an axe. They also found a substance on the boat that he was certain was blood. And they also claimed there was blood on the captain's sword. You know, the one that was still found in its sheath in his cabin. The galley was pretty torn out, the stove was knocked out of place, and the cooking utensils were thrown around, and the whole ship was soaking wet. Flood saw this as evidence of a fight, but this could easily be from the ship being thrown about on the waves. Once the ship had been discovered, the crew of the D Gracia tried to get a response from the ship and watched it for roughly two hours before they tried to board it. During that time they witnessed the ship rocking on the waves. With no one manning the sails or keeping it on course, the Marie Celeste was knocked about in a way that shit would be knocked out of place. The waves also explained how so much of the cabins were soaked. But, Sally Flood was stubborn in thinking that something criminal happened aboard the abandoned ship. His opinions were based on some facts that were never explained. Inspector Austin found marks along both sides of the bow that appeared to be deliberate cuts. The ship, having traveled roughly 400 nautical miles without a crew to control her, was held in doubt. Sailing requires a lot of work by the crew to make sure the ship doesn't sink. Even on the open ocean, large waves can sink a ship quick, and the Marie Celeste was not that large. It was big compared to other brigantines, but it still was not a large ship. It was also going past land, and with the storms, it was unlikely that it would have moved past the islands without some damage. James Winchester went to Gibraltar in January of 1873 to represent the interests of the Marie Celeste. He immediately quashed the idea that Briggs would have engaged in a fight with his crew. He also didn't believe that Captain Briggs would have just deserted his ship. When it was proved that there wasn't blood on the ship or the blade, Sally Flood's theory fell apart. Flood also suspected that Captain Morehouse had something to do with the disappearance of the people on the Marie. He was certain that the captain and crew were hiding something, despite there being no evidence that the DeGracia had any involvement in what happened on the other ship prior to finding it adrift with no crew. Judge Cochran praised the crew of the Degracia for their work and thorough observation of the vessel, as well as their skill at bringing it to dock in a fairly good state. The reason that the process dragged out was because Flood insisted that something criminal had occurred. When three months finally passed without any evidence to prove his theory, the court was able to make its final determination. The court said that nothing obviously criminal had occurred aboard the vessel. This ruled out things like insurance fraud and the degracia having caused the people aboard the Marie Celeste to disappear. Its cargo was still mostly intact, with no signs of the same kind of disturbances as seen in other parts of the ship. However, there was nine barrels missing. It was assumed that they had been consumed by the crew, despite it being denatured alcohol and would not have been drinkable. With the findings indicating that nothing criminal had occurred. To drive the crew off the ship, at least nothing criminal by the Degracia. Captain Morehouse and his crew were awarded a sixth of what the ship and its cargo were worth, which were insured for$46,000. They ended up getting$17,000, which was way less than what they were expecting. I believe typically they normally get at least half of what it's worth, so this amount was a little insulting. Once the Marie Celeste was cleared for sailing again, it finished its trip. The barrels were unloaded at one of the ports in Genoa. With the delivery done, the Marie Celeste was put back into service. But with all the shit in its past, it was now believed to have been cursed. People, especially sailors, being superstitious, they had trouble finding sailors to crew her, and merchants who wanted anything to do with the ship. So the ship sat empty for over a year before the owners decided to sell her off at a loss. The new owners didn't fare much better with the ship. They tried using it in the Indian Ocean trade, but still continuously lost money with the ship. After another captain got sick and died in 1879, they said fuck it and sold the ship off the following year. These new owners tried for four years to turn a profit, which never happened. So, Captain Gilman Parker tried a new tactic to make a buck off the ship. Parker had the ship loaded with junk and lied about the value so he could insure it for$30,000. With the ship loaded down with crap, they set off for Port au Prince. They sailed into a well-mapped channel with a large coral reef. He ran the ship over the reef, ripping out the underside and damaging the ship beyond repair. They abandoned ship and sold off what they could for$500 before putting in an insurance claim. And it wouldn't be long before they got found out and arrested for fraud. Captain Parker was also charged with barretry, the crime of intentionally wrecking a ship. This was a pretty serious charge. Since they apparently didn't want people doing this sort of thing, it carried a death sentence. That's right, they would fucking kill you for intentionally wrecking a ship. Parker, however, got lucky. The trial ended with a hung jury, and before they could be retried, they agreed to repay all the money they had got from wrecking the ship, as well as not trying to claim any insurance money. And since this took care of that charge, Parker's charge of Barry Tree got thrown out. So he narrowly avoided the noose. He, however, could not avoid the hit to his reputation. No one would hire him again, and he died a few years later in poverty. Arthur Briggs, the only surviving member of the missing family, was raised by one of his uncles. He skipped out on a life at sea and settled on being a bookkeeper. He would live a long, boring life with his wife Margaret Holmes and his two sons. Since we don't know exactly what happened to the Marie Celeste, numerous theories have popped up running from the mundane to the ridiculous. The ridiculous being things like a sea monster, with a huge squid being the most popular, attacking the ship. Despite there being, you know, no signs of any sort of attack on the ship, or aliens, because it's always aliens when there's no other explanation. Mutiny and a pirate attack were also put forward as a theory, but again, no signs of a fight, kind of rule these out. Plus, if it was pirates, they would have taken the cargo, or at least taking the food aboard the ship, which had not been touched. Waterspouts or a seaquake are also thought to be a possibility. While they would explain things like sails being missing and the water on the ship, it doesn't explain why everyone was missing. Not everyone on board the ship would have been on deck to get washed off the ship, so someone should have been on board when the ship was found. The most likely theory is they left the ship of their own free will. Why they did this though is what is unknown. One thought is they may have miscalculated the amount of water on board and feared the ship was sinking, which is unlikely but possible. Now, my problem with the fear of sinking theory is how much water was actually on the ship when they abandoned it. We know the ship was left to drift on its own for over a week in stormy weather. All that rainwater gotta go somewhere. Plus, water coming in on the ship from the rough waves, and with no one on board to man the pumps, it's just gonna keep collecting in the hold. It's not like they had electricity to run the pumps when they weren't there. Plus, they were down a pump. One of the two pumps normally aboard was found disassembled, so the single pump would have struggled to put the water back out anyways. Another theory is that there were nine broken barrels of alcohol in the hold. The fumes possibly could have driven them off the ship, or they feared an explosion caused by the fumes. Which is unlikely also, but in 2006, Dr. Andrea Seller from the University College London Chemistry Department used butane gas and cubes of paper to simulate wooden barrels. She created a pressure wave type explosion which throws out a huge wave of flame, but behind it, relatively cool air. No soot was left behind, and there was no burning or scorching. The cubes of paper were left untouched by the flames. Which, if that's what happened, would have made them abandon the ship fearing another bigger explosion. Would have scared the shit out of me. Once in the lifeboat, they would have potentially gotten lost in the storm and never seen again. And there's some other theories out there, but none of them, not very likely. It also doesn't help that over the last 150 years, the legend of the ship has grown. With everyone from Arthur Conan Doyle, yep, the author of Sherlock Holmes, putting his own spin on the tale all the way to an early episode of Doctor Who taking on the story. And that was the Ghost Ship Marie Celeste. Thanks for listening, and if you like the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on your app of choice. And don't forget, you can reach out to the show at history as a disaster at gmail.com with questions, comments, or suggestions. And follow us on social media Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever. And share the episode. Your friends will love it. And take care of yourself out there. Chase that dream. Don't get on that boat. Live for today, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Thanks and goodbye.