It’s December 5th, 1872. The waters of the Atlantic are cold and desolate. Unforgiving.

A British brigantine, the Dei Gratia sits about 400 miles east of the Azores when crew members spot a ship that seems to just be bobbing on the endless waves - lifeless in an ocean that seems to never end.

The Captain of the Dei Gratia, David Morehouse was surprised when he discovered that the ship his men were seeing, was none other than the Mary Celeste - a brigantine that left New York City eight days earlier bound for Genoa, Italy. Surely, they should have made it by now, he thought. Something must be wrong.

Under the order of Captain Morehouse, the Dei Gratia changes course in an attempt to investigate the seemingly abandoned ship.

Upon arrival at the Celeste, Morehouse sends a search party that includes first mate Oliver Deveau and second mate John Wright to board the brigantine and begin a search. Among the many strange things that the De Gratia crew discovered upon boarding the ship, was that her vessels were set, her cargo intact, but her crew of ten, including Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife, and their two-year- old daughter was nowhere to be found. Below deck, the ship’s charts and maps were a mess, but present. It’s only lifeboat was missing, and one of it’s two pumps had been strangely disassembled. There was over a 6 month supply of both food and water, but no one aboard the ship to consume it.

The absence of life aboard the Celeste immediately fueled rumors and speculation, that still send shivers down the spines of some of modern day’s most seasoned nautical investigators.

Again, under orders of Captain Morehouse, the crew of the Dei Gratia took control of the abandoned ship and sailed it 800 miles to Gibraltar where a British court convened a salvage hearing to determine if the spoils of the Mary Celeste would be divided up amongst the crew of the Dei Gratia under maritime salvage insurance law.

The case wouldn’t be so cut and dry though, as the attorney general in charge of the inquiry, Frederick Solly - Flood, suspected that foul play may have played a part in the mysterious vanishing of the ship’s crew. That is where tonight’s story begins.

Welcome back to Vanished. This is the Mary Celeste.

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SHOW NOTES & FURTHER READING

What Happened to the Mary Celeste? @ History
The Chilling Mystery Of The Mary Celeste, The Ghost Ship Found Empty In The Atlantic In 1872 @ All Things Interesting
The Incredible and Chilling Story of the Mary Celeste @ Modeler's Central