Seaquake Shakes Crew: Breaking Down the Desertion of the Mary Celeste

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her repair. She collided with another ship on her first Atlantic crossing, and then ran aground in Nova Scotia on her way back to America. After changing hands multiple times and following extensive repairs, this fateful trip was the first under the name Mary Celeste.

There were many speculations of what happened to the crew ranging from supernatural phenomenon to insurance fraud. Piracy was ruled out since the ships valuable cargo and its passenger’s personal belongings were still onboard. There was also no sign of violence to show there was an attack on the crew. The quick deployment of the lifeboat by the ship’s crew created the damage to the ships railing and hatches. In addition, supposed blood found on a sword turned out to be rust.

Frederick Solly Flood, Gibraltar’s Attorney-General “urged that the crew, drunk from the ship’s cargo and had murdered the Chief Mate, the Captain and his family, and then fled to another vessel” (Jones). The evidence this theory stemmed from was the fact that nine barrels of alcohol in its cargo were found empty. Flood stuck to this claim, even though he knew the alcohol in the cargo hold was “some sort of industrial ethanol or methanol, something the sailors wouldn’t drink” (Hicks 59). “The alcohol was more likely to kill than to intoxicate” the men, also Captain Briggs ran a teetotal ship; no alcohol of any sort was allowed (Jack 140). Furthermore, the two German brothers who were accused of the mutiny, due to the absence of their personal possessions, had lost them in a shipwreck prior to the trip.

The Azores Gibraltar Fault Zone is one of the most active fault zones in the world, "[seaquakes] appear to cluster much more thickly near the islands or near the mainland than midway between them" (Dutton 278). Since 1981 when they were able to keep record, the United States Naval Research Laboratory has recorded a major seaquake near Santa Maria Island once a year (Williams). While there is no record of an earthquake in local newspapers in November of 172, an 8.5 magnitude earthquake was reported on every island of the Azores, in December. Its foreshocks and aftershocks would have been felt for the better part of a month. Seaquakes are known to cause considerable concern to mariners but rarely serious structural damage. (Ambrasyes)

Over the years, countless other boats have experienced seaquakes and shipwrecks in this area of the sea near the Azores Islands. Many ships did not survive the seaquake they encountered, some had survivors, and some did not. The Mary Celeste was a tough little ship, even when her last owner Gilman Parker, tried to sink her for insurance money. When the ship did not sink he tried to set her on fire, but the ship refused to sink. The insurance company decided to investigate the wreck, at the end of the day, Parker was charged with insurance fraud, only to die while waiting for his trial.

Mary Celeste now rests off the coast of Haiti, in a coral reef near the Island of Voodoo. In 2001 Clive Cussler along with the National Underwater and Marine Agency went in search of the ship wanting to "restore the ship to its rightful prominence as the sea’s greatest mystery" (Hicks 250). As for the captain and his family, a marker stands in the Evergreen Cemetery near Marion, Massachusetts with an eerie reminder that they were "Lost in Brig Mary Celeste." If not for a short story written many years ago, we would not have been so mesmerized with this mystery would not have prompted so many books and movies to be written about her, as fascinating as it is, drifting off into history with so many other shipping mysteries over the centuries (Blumberg).

Works Cited

Ambraseys, N. "Short Communication: A Damaging Seaquake." Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics 13: 421-4. Web. 12 June 2014.

Blumberg, Jess. Abandoned Ship: The Mary Celeste. Smithsonian. Smithsonian Mag., Nov. 2007. Web. 5 June 2014.

Dutton, Clarence. Earthquakes in the Light of the New Seismology. New York: Knickerbocker, 1904. Print.

Hicks, Brian. Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew. New York: Ballantine, 2004. Print.

Jack, Albert. Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs: The World’s Most Puzzling Mysteries Solved. New York: Random, 2007. Print.

Jones, Phil. "Baffling Events - The Mary Celeste, A Ghost Ship." Baffling Events - The Mary Celeste, A Ghost Ship. N.p., 1 Jan. 2008. Web. 12 June 2014.

The True Story of the Mary Celeste. Smithsonian, 2014. DVD.

Williams, David. "Mary Celeste was Abandoned During a Seaquake!" Deafwhale. Deafwhale., n.d. Web. 6 June 2014.