January 9, 2018 • 61 mins
When the Mary Celeste was discovered floating and abandoned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean one day in 1872, the legend of the ghost ship was born. Why did the Mary Celeste’s crew disappear? Was it pirates? Mutiny? UFOs? Well, probably not that last one.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland.
The Triumvirate, the hat Trick, the Trio, the triage trifecta French.
(00:24):
There you go? Is that Latin M? I don't know
if I just know it as a gambling term. Well,
whatever it is, it's stuff you should know. Hey, Happy
New Year, Happy New Year to YouTube buddy, Happy new Year, Jerry.
Uh so in real time. This is our first recording.
(00:44):
Uh I know this always feels a little bit weird
when we say things like happy New Year, and what
February late January? No, it's like next week we ate
up the kiddie. Did we get that slim? Oh? Yeah,
during our long break which was wonderful. Yeah, it was
so nice, Chuck, I actually get this relaxed. Yes it was.
(01:08):
I did I unwound. I My cortisol levels decreased, although
the spare tire didn't actually go down with it. It
was replaced by frosting. Um my webcam begs to differ
because I was peeking in on you. The whole time. Well, okay,
I did a lot of work, but I did relax
in between. I saw you pacing wondering what to do
(01:31):
with myself, clipping orkids, clipping orchids. Man, my orchids are
doing so well right now. It's super cold out of course,
right but I've got to keep them outside because they
have a bit of an ant advest station. Haven't figured
out how to do anything about that one yet, but
I built like a little impromptu cold frame around him,
and I have a mini croc pot warming water inside
(01:54):
the cold frame. So to the orchids. They're in Ecuador
right now during the rainy season. It's like ounsizing. Have
you seen that yet? No? That means nothing to you? Then, No,
it's I have no idea what you're talking about. What
you have to tell me now? What is it? Well,
it's that new movie, the new Alexander Paine movie with
Matt Damon. Does that have to do with or kids?
(02:16):
Has to do with Ecuador? Shrinking people down and living
in miniature Oh that sounds kind of cool. So they'll
be like a miniature crock pot. That's what got me
on that tangent. Did you ever see that documentary. I'm
sorry everybody who wants to stay on track, But just
one more thing. Did you ever see that documentary Chuck
about the the woman who created miniature crime scenes for
(02:38):
UM like police to study and learn from. No, you
should check it out. It was it was this lady
who did exactly what I just said. They made a
documentary about her and how much these things have actually
helped teach techniques and how radical a change it was,
and presumption of guilt and that kind of thing. You
know how much I love many of your things, though,
(03:01):
well you would love this. I'm surprised you haven't seen it. Then, No,
because what was I think it was in UM Chicago,
the museum in Chicago and the downstairs I want to
say basement, but whatever, the lowest floor is. They have
the works of the woman who created all the miniature
UM house interiors and it's just like I could have
(03:23):
spent all day in there. Yeah, I'll bet so, You're
amazing you would. I know some there is something about
things that are really small, things that are really small,
and things that were once above ground that are now underwater.
Have you you ever get the little uh, a little
tiny Tabasco bottle. M I just want to hug it.
It's about as prized the Tabasco bottle as you can get. Man,
(03:45):
I love small stuff like that. Yeah, well I know
what you're getting next Christmas. Some tiny yeah, well some
tiny tabascosy. I'm gonna be like, hug these, give me
a small anything. Okay, good to know, good to know. Alright,
so let's talk. Let's wrap all right. You know I
love me a mystery chuck. I think you do too. Yeah,
(04:08):
this is a good one. The ghost ship. When you yeah,
when you cross mystery with history, it's it just blows
up the spot, The whole spot blows up. And that's
what this one is like. I remember learning about the
Mary Celestack when I was a young Tyke probably filmed that,
like Time Life Unexplained Phenomena series. I'm pretty sure that's right. Yeah.
(04:31):
They were great. They were just chuck full of just
outright lies and and mistaken facts and things like that,
but they were perfect for like a little ten year
old imagination. You know, you were tiny. What do you
mean you were tiny? Ten year old? Your imagination was
big though I wasn't tiny. Ten. I was really starting
(04:52):
to work on some chubs by then, Yeah I was
I'm going in reversal, or I was skinny ten year old?
Oh yeah, I was never a skinny kid. Yeah. Well anyway,
it's just division little kind of chuvy ten year old
Josh sitting there reading a time life book, learning about
the Mary Celeste This, like you said, ghost ship and
(05:14):
just my hair standing up on and going, this is
what a great universe to live in, Yeah, where there
can be ghost ships? Right, yeah, and we'll get to uh,
at the end, we will reveal the big well, no
one knows for sure what happened, but no, um, we'll
get to what the best guess is at the very end.
(05:35):
Or should we just say that right now? No, No,
it be weird. I think no, I think that, but
I subscribe to the best guess as we'll see. All right,
so way back machine time, right, but this is our
our seafaring version. Well, no, we're going to old New York. Okay,
so we don't need to get wet yet. No, not yet.
We're Daniel day Lewis reigned Supreme. Have you seen that yet? Oh? No,
(05:59):
you talking about the gangs of New York, New York,
about the new and phantom thread where do you hear
about these movies? That's my job, dude. Oh yeah, that's right.
Um yea that I don't think that movie is even
out yet, actually, at least not in Atlanta. You know,
we're like a second second tier city. Yeah, that's true,
(06:19):
but I suspect not for long because I think Atlanta
is actually surpassed l A. Now as far as like
film production goes. Have you heard that? I could certainly
believe it. Yeah. So does that mean we're second tier
in l A's third tier? Maybe so A two point five. Alright,
So are you talking early November eight seventy two, Yes,
(06:43):
November four, to be exact, on Monday? Are you talking
about the Astor House in New York City, New York? Yeah? Man,
And this is at a time where like, have you
ever read Devil in the White City? Now, man, I
still have not read that. You should read. It's pretty good.
But one of the things that the book does is
it reproduces end us from these dinners that they had
when they were planning the expo, and these things were
(07:04):
like they had chapters. Basically, they'd smoke cigarettes in the middle.
There be a cigarette round because you had to do
something to keep all of this food down and and
help the process of digestion. It was crazy how much
they would eat. So I can imagine the food was
pretty good at the Astor House in eighteen seventy two. Yeah,
but everything back then was like crown roast and rack
(07:28):
of lamb and it was just like huge trays of beef,
right live pig that you beat to death at your
table and then start eating. God, they did it. Believe
me that time Life books told me so. Alright, So
at this dinner table, we have um a few people.
We have one captain David Moorehouse, and then his buddy
(07:49):
he was a ship's captain. His buddy another ship's captain,
because you know, they didn't hang out with one another,
um captain Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs. Uh. And they're sitting
down with Briggs his wife Sarah. And I don't know
did did Moore House have his wife there or was
he That's not the impression I have. I think that
Sarah was there because they were. She was shipping out
(08:10):
the next day too. I think he was batching it.
In other words, but they were good buddies, both captains
both set to set sail out of New York for
the Mediterranean, and I guess they were just talking shop. Yeah,
I mean, I think they both grew up in Nova Scotia,
so they may have known each other. There a couple
(08:32):
of sault the old sea dogs, but good people from
from from all accounts, and they I mean the fact
that these guys were having dinner in New York on
November four, eight two totally unremarkable in most senses, right,
but a month later it would be incredibly ironic. And
(08:53):
tell him why, Well, because more houses ship the h
is it Digratia, I think, So okay, we'll call it
that d E I g r A t I A
de gracia. Uh, we'll sailing along and and we'll get
to the specifics of how this happened a second. But
they came upon his buddy ship, the Mary Celeste, and
(09:15):
by all accounts was probably like, hey, that's uh, that's Briggs.
We need to go over and check out how how
Spoon's Briggs is doing right, And they weren't doing well
because nobody aboard the ship was aboard the ship. No,
I mean, just seeing the ship would have called him
by surprise, because he shipped out a full week later
(09:36):
bound for the same city, leaving from the same ports,
so they should have never caught up to them. And
then the fact that, yeah, when they boarded it and
there was no one aboard, a mystery that endures to
this day was born that day. That is correct, all right,
So the Mary Celeste very famous ghost ship. But what
a lot of people don't know, Chuck, is that even
(09:56):
before the Mary Celeste became this famous ghost ship, it
was already considered pretty unlucky. Actually. Yeah, so eighteen sixty
was when uh not even named the mary Celestia, it
was called the Amazon at the time. Was born in
Nova Scotia, and I believe the very first voyage, what
(10:16):
you would call a maiden voyage, was a wholesome some
timber to London across the Atlantic. Yeah, that's what she
pretty pretty routine. Yeah, didn't go very well, no, it
didn't know. Her first captain was a guy named Robert McLellan,
and he apparently had had a cold, and when they
(10:36):
shipped out, he took such a turn for the worst
that they had to turn around and go back home,
and he died two days after they got back. In
the moment, can you imagine back in those days, if
you get a cold, you're like, well, I got about
a one in ten chance of dying, right, maybe even
worse than that. Right, Yeah, so this this, but think
about this, like, first of all, the sailors are fairly
(10:57):
um superstitious, bunt, right, So a maiden voyage, anything that's
like hinky or weird or bad about a maiden voyage
automatically cursed ship. So the captain dying on a maiden
voyage that can't even be completed, that's a cursed ship
right out of the gate, I would say so. But
this is also a business venture, so it's not like
(11:19):
the owners gave up on the thing. They said, well,
just get in another captain, you superstitious dogs, and get
back out there. And that's what they did, yes, And
captain number two was John Nutting Parker, great name is
a good name, and he also sailed to London. And
when they left, they actually encountered some trouble right off
the bat. They hit some fishing equipment off the coast
(11:42):
of Maine, pressed on as you do, and did reach London,
um dumped off their cargo, set sail for home. And
as they set sail for home, they actually sunk another
boat in the English Channel. Yes, cursed ship, cursed ship. Yeah,
and that other boat was probably pick a lot right exactly. Yeah,
(12:04):
And the the captain of the other ship even stubbed
his toe on the way down afterward. It was terrible.
So again, this is a business venture. The owners said, whatever,
that was somebody else's ship, our ships. Fine, we're gonna
keep doing this London to um or New York to
London timber route. They also did some West Indies trade
(12:25):
for a while, and everything was fairly normal for a while. Um,
and then a freak storm caught the ship. And I'm not, like,
I'm not a seafarer by any means whatsoever. So I
don't know if this actually is like an inordinate amount
of things to happen to one ship, but it does
seem like a lot, and just you know, less than
(12:47):
a decade for a single ship. So she the first
captain dies, second captain sinks another ship. They run into
some fishing tackle, and then in October of eighteen sixty seven,
she's running ground in a storm and it's so bad
off that the owner's sake, we're abandoning here. Yeah, that
must be pretty bad. So they literally left the ship
there to decompose or I guess you would call it
(13:11):
rott if you're Wooden. Sure, I guess would decomposes, right
or is that just rot? I think rod is more slang, okay,
and it sounds grosser to like cool, right. Uh. And
at that point, the ship was bought by dude name
Alexander McBean, also from Nova Scotia, also a great name,
(13:31):
and then he I mean, the ship is changing hands. Basically,
he sold that shipwreck. And I guess that was just
a thing at the time. You would by a shipwreck,
maybe sell it in turn a quick profit, probably not
a ton of money. But he sold that shipwreck to
a dude who then sold it to another dude name
(13:52):
Richard Haynes. So he paid about fifty bucks for it,
which is about according to our favorite inflation calculator, which
is west Egg. That's correct. It's just got a good
name and plus plus it's easy to use, and it's
been around forever. Yeah, and they're there. I mean I
(14:14):
think it goes up to now, which is pretty good.
That's pretty pretty good. They're always just like a year behind,
which I can respect. That's fine. They need the data,
so Haynes went through bankruptcy and that boat was seized,
and then that was sold to a group led by
a man named James Winchester, and uh, Haynes had fixed
it up a little bit, but Winchester really put a
(14:35):
lot of money into it, lengthened it to over a
hundred feet, added a deck. Basically the show would have
been called Flip This Brigantine starring Vanilla Ice. You like
that one, Huh? I've seen that show? Have you've seen it?
For like five minutes? I'll tell you. I'll tell you this.
(14:57):
This proves that I relaxed this vacation. You're ready? Yeah?
I got hooked on an Animal Planet show called Insane Pools?
Have you heard of it? I do watch one of
those pool shows, but I don't think it's that one.
It's another one. I was like, I have to go
to bed now or else I'm gonna be up to
like five am watching this marathon about a pool renovation
(15:20):
show that has nothing to do with animals. It was.
It was bizarre, how just it just got its hooks
in me? So yeah that that happens from time to
time with me too. And you know what scares me
about those pools though, is most of them are just
amazing and you have like grottos and waterfalls and all
that cool stuff. But some people opt for those death
tubes where you can like swim through a thing to
(15:43):
another thing. Oh. I haven't seen one with that yet. Yeah,
they're like, hey, we wanna we want to be able
to swim through a tube, but to another part of
the pool and potentially, you know, get stuck and die.
I see it. That would be really awful. I don't
think that ever happens. So they need to just leave
a stick of butter at the mouth of that thing,
so you can grease yourself up real good as you're
(16:03):
going through you know, your pool, and just have a
sheen of butter floating at the top of it kind
of rots in the sunlight. I worked at a pool
like that once that It was not butter, but there
was a sheen. I don't know what it was. I'm
sure it was some block, Yeah, I guess, so it
has to be. What else is it gonna be? I
(16:23):
don't know. It could be there's probably a little body
fixed in there. But does that cause a rainbow sheen? Oh?
A rainbow she No, I don't know. What was There
should not be a rainbow sheen on your pool unless
you had like pool like swimmers covered in gasoline going
into your pool. That would explain it all that might
(16:44):
have been it. Alright, So Winchester and by the way,
Winchester is just the major investor. Uh, there was a
very notable other investor. And what was his name? Oh,
you're asking me, it's been a couple of weeks. As
a sorry about that. You're just staring up in the space.
That was weird. His name was Benjamin Spooner Briggs. That
(17:07):
you will notice is the dude from Dinner. Yes, so
he's He's not only the captain of the Mary Celeste,
he was a two fifth stake and investor in it.
And um, what's notable is that at the time he
invested in the Mary Celeste, he and his brother were
actually considering getting out of the um the sailing game
(17:28):
and and buying a hardware store together in New Bedford,
mass And instead Briggs said, now you know what, this
is too good of a deal. This is this is
a great ship. I'm gonna pour my savings into a
two fifth stake, and not only that, I'll be the
captain of it, and not only that for its maiden voyage.
I'm gonna bring my wife and daughter along with me. Yeah.
(17:49):
It's one of those sliding doors things like should have
gone into hardware, Yeah yeah, rather than sailing into history.
Um So, by the way, that when the ship was
officially renamed the Mary Celeste from the Amazon is when
it was reregistered, I guess, and I looked it up.
I was kind of curious because there is a Marie Celeste,
(18:10):
which was a fairly famous World War two or I'm sorry, uh,
civil worship, and I was just curious where the name
came from. And nobody really knows, but they said there
is a theory that it was an error by the
painter because it's an English and a French name and
it's just a weird mix up to not have been
Marie and be Mary Celeste. So they think it might
have been either the Mary Sellers or another Marie Celeste.
(18:35):
So either way, who knows. Well even today though, like
still there's like some confusion when you if you google
Mary Celeste, Google says, do you mean Marie Celeste? And
I say no, Google, I mean Mary Celeste says, do
you mean Vanilla Ice? Vanilla Ice flipped his pool. Uh
so Briggs, like you said, brought along his wife, who
(18:59):
was at dinner, and then their two year old daughter,
Sophia Matilda. They left a little Arthur behind because he
was seven and he was in school, and they said,
we don't want to take a little Arthur out of school. No,
he was already pretty dim witted, so I no, I
don't know, but they didn't want to interrupt his schooling.
(19:20):
So they said, Arthur, you stay here with some relatives,
and they took Sophia Matilda with them. Um, and this
was a huge decision. I don't know if this is
unusual or not, but whatever, Briggs said, I'm bringing my
wife and daughter with me on this this ship on
on the Maiden voyage. And everyone I know they're like, oh,
good good, this will be fun. Um, well, we'll not
(19:42):
only have to work really hard for weeks that see,
we'll also have to entertain your two year old whenever
she wants right, and we can't right exactly. So um.
That decision, though probably had some effects on on the
voyage overall, definitely had an effect on who Briggs chose
(20:03):
for the crew. He you know, he had his wife,
his Ardor. He was known as a Christian, an upstanding person,
apparently didn't drink much, if at all. Um he was
known as fair, just level headed, and just an overall
honorable person, not just at sea, but in life you
know as well back on land. So he was pretty
(20:23):
well regarded. I'm assuming his wife was equally well regarded. Um,
and he because his family was on the boat with him,
he went to some some trouble to make sure that
the seven crew members that he picked were of upright
character themselves, that there weren't any shade balls, because you
don't want any shady sailors out in the middle of
(20:45):
the Atlantic Ocean with your wife and child. You don't
want that. So that that is to say that the
crew of the Mary Celeste on her maiden voyage with
Benjamin Briggs, his wife and daughter were all pretty pretty
top notch to act, Yeah, for sure. So Um, they
set sail. They what they were carrying was about seventeen
(21:08):
hundred actually sevent one to be exact, barrels of what's
called de natured alcohol. This is not rum, This is
not something you're gonna drink. It is undrinkable. It is
like fuel. Basically, industrial fuel, and they finally sit sail
in November seven, eighteen seventy two, bound for Italy, bound
for Genoa. And UM, I think we should probably take
(21:31):
a break right here. Let's do it, all right, We'll
be right back about the haunted ghost shoot alright, chuck, um,
(22:03):
So right, okay, So there's there were there was an investigation,
as you can imagine. We'll talk about that more later.
But this investigation determined that probably although they definitely ran
into some storms and heavy weather here there, but most
of the voyage of the Mary Celeste was fairly unremarkable overall, right.
(22:26):
It wasn't they did. It wasn't until the last five
days before they are suspected to have disappeared, that the
Mary Celestes voyage turned a little odd or became a
little unusual. And they figured out that, um, from looking
at the log books that within that last five days, UM,
(22:47):
Captain Briggs decided that he really should have seen land
by by this time. And if you're a captain, in
your chronometer, which is basically like from what I was
I was reading about this, it's like a portable time
zone that you can use for celestial navigation to to
(23:08):
basically tell exactly where you are in the world. Um,
it's a very valuable tool to have it. See, but
if your chronometer is is faulty, you're not necessarily going
to be where you think you are. So, based on
his calculations with his chronometer, he thought that they were
they should have seen land the Azores by then. Um,
(23:30):
this island chain in in the Atlantic, kind of towards Portugal.
It's like just like dead west of southern Portugal. Yeah,
I think the easternmost island of the Azores is like
four hundred miles west of Portugal something like that. Anyway,
I can imagine too, but it's I think it's also
basically in the middle of nowhere in the in the
(23:51):
mid Atlantic. It's one of those things. Or if you
do the Google map, you will see these tiny specs
and nothing but blue. Right, he's gotta start zooming out
to see where the heck you are, Right, it's like
the Hawaii of the Atlantic, I think. So he thought
that he should have seen the Azores by then, and
he hadn't, so I think he started to get a
(24:13):
little nervous because they changed course. They went northward, which
he suspected would have taken him towards the azoris and
he may have been either looking to kind of um
uh re re orient himself or just looking for haven.
Who knows, but they know that that they did change
(24:34):
course and that he wasn't where that he thought he was. Yeah,
and I also get the idea, which will job with
one of the theories is that he may have been
a little nervous having his two year old and his
wife aboard in general. Yeah, for sure, you know, I mean, yeah,
he's not just it's not just his safety now or
even the safety of the crew. It's his little kid
and his wife's safety. Of course, he's going to be
(24:55):
worried about that exactly. Man. I can't imagine having two
year old on a ship. What a nightmare. Good God,
it's going to cruise. You can experience it a million
times over. Yeah, because the cruise ship modernday cruise ship
is the same as a nineteenth century sailing vessel. It's
not like there's nothing to do. No, that's true. Although
(25:20):
they did have a melodeon, which I had to look
that up as well. It's like an accordion. Yeah, I
don't see why they call it something different, right, an
accordion with keys, all right, so on, well, oh, a
supported as opposed to what the little buttons? Oh, or
maybe it's the accordion with the buttons. It's one of
(25:42):
the two. Okay, you know what I'm talking. It's like
a weird Al Yankovic type instrument. Oh well, we should
get Aaron Cooper to write us, because he will surely do.
And they yes, I'm sure he. Um. So they would
have had that aboard, which would have been all the
all the pleasure you could imagine. Yeah, like one wouldn't
all all in an accordion is really kind of keep
(26:02):
it to year old occupied and the communal salt lick
in the middle of the above deck. Alright. So uh
the next morning, Um, they wake up in the Mary
Celeste actually sees land, which I can imagine if you
are a seaman out there in the nineteenth century and
you're a little worried. There's no more welcome sight than
(26:25):
seeing land, you know, after seeing nothing but water for
for weeks and weeks. So they see land. The log
book says they saw land there about six miles from
Santa Marilla, which is the easternmost of the Azores. And um,
this was sort of the last stop before you hit Portugal. Right.
(26:46):
I can't imagine they're like, there's just he just was
so relieved. So the reason we know this is not
because anybody on the Mary Celeste told anybody, at least
not verbally. They they found the law book and the
log slate, which is kind of like you're you're just
keeping track of stuff on the slate before you actually
transcribe it into the log book. And the log slate
(27:09):
was where they noted that eight am on November twenty five,
the Maryslist sighted land and by their calculations were six
miles off of Santa Maria Rights. So that was November. Yes,
they I guess they just had a nice Thanksgiving. Yeah
maybe with their salt lick. Now they had food, as
(27:31):
we will see. Uh So the remember the de Garcia
de Gatia de Garratia. I think that's it, that last one.
So the other ship that was being sailed by his buddy,
Captain Morehouse, remember uh Seamen John Johnson of that ship
said hey, cappy, uh, there's a there's another ship out here,
(27:56):
and it's about four miles further east from where that
log had placed. That ship. The Mary Celeste. Not only
that it was a good ten or eleven days later, right,
So this is all spelling trouble. Uh that there are
only three sails set the rest of the sales or
had either blown away weren't raised. None of this bodes well.
(28:18):
And Captain Moorehouse, I don't think he probably recognized from
that distance that it was the Mary Celeste yet, but
he sent his first mate Oliver de Vell and second
mate John Right and another dude and said get in
that boat row there and see what the heck is
going on? Right, So these guys to Vote and Right
were the ones who actually got on deck and and
(28:41):
investigated the Mary Celeste. And I read this one article
that I think just put it so perfectly, like just
ropes creaking, a door kind of banging open and closed
in in the wind, and just utter silence. As far
as humans are concerned, nobody on board the ship would
be so creepy. I think that that Oliver de Vaux
(29:03):
and John Wright probably experienced one of the creepiest experiences
that any human ever has in the history of people.
So is it creepier for Josh Clark Seaman Josh to
get upon the ship and find nobody aboard, but everything
(29:24):
seemingly okay, or to see dead bodies in each of
the bunks it would be okay. So it depends on
the position of the dead bodies. Are they just kind
of like crumpled and tossed, like they've been thrown down
onto the bed or something like that, Like are the
sitting up at at at the dinner table or sitting
(29:46):
up in bed or is it a Walt Disney ride,
That's That's what I'm saying, yeah, Or are they laying
there with purple robes and nikes Heaven's Gate style. Yeah,
that would be something as well. So to me, creepier
is I think no one there. I think it would
be more horrific to find the bodies, of course, but
(30:06):
creepier would be um, just finding a ghost chip, I agree.
I think because there's the absence of something that's supposed
to be there, and that's I think what what would
make it so creepy? Well, yeah, and I think the
thing that really makes it creepy, as we will see,
is that that was it wasn't like, hey, this ship
has clearly been pirate id and people there's blood on
(30:27):
the walls, and people have been killed. There was just nobody.
There no signs of distressed. Um, the the sex stan,
the chronomin chronometer. I know it's tougher than you think
to say the chronometer. Uh, the nav book they were gone,
but that log book was still there. So basically like
there was there was food, there was drinking water, There
(30:49):
were everyone's clothes were there. That little girls to the
salt look was there? Her two toys were there. Shoot,
there was the impression from her sleeping on the bed
in the captain's cabins for creepy it is, Um there
was there was not. There were no signs of violence.
There was no signs of like, um, of panic, no
(31:10):
kind of disorder. I mean, some things were out of order,
but it was the kind of stuff that you could
chalk up to a ship drifting at sea for a
week or so by itself, right, broken compass, like some
of the some of the sails have been blown down
onto the deck itself. Um, there was some water in
there and right. And then one of the things they found,
(31:34):
which was a pretty big clue was um improvised sounding rod,
which is basically just a stick with markings on it
to show feet right. Um. And they that you would
lower that into the hold to see what where the
water mark. H It's just to figure out how deep
water is in a hold. So they clearly knew that
(31:54):
there was water in the hold because they built the
sounding rod and it had been found on the deck
by the two guys from the day Grattia. Yeah, and
it was only about three and a half feet of
water by all accounts, and that's not that sounds like
a lot to a guy like me who's not an
experienced sailor, but apparently on a ship that size, that's
like no big whoop. One of the other things that
ties in with the water too, is they had two
(32:15):
pumps aboard. One of the pumps was found disassembled, so
there was basically like these guys came onto the ship
and there are all these these weird, out of context
things that were the result of decisions made by people
who who are now vanished, and they had to to
try to figure this out. But one of the first
(32:37):
things that came into their head eventually, I think, when
they went back to the day Grattia and told more
House what was going on. Um in pretty short order,
somebody said, well, we should probably take this ship to
Gibraltar with us. How about that, Because there's something called
salvage rights, and whether it was your friend who was
missing or what have you, you have been pretty foolish
(33:01):
to have just sure continued on your way and left
the Mary Celeste. Because what they found pretty quickly, and
this adds to the mystery itself as well, the Mary
Celeste was totally saleable. Well yeah, and I don't even
think we pointed out that all the all the denatured
alcohol that they were shipping was there and intact, like
(33:22):
it's not like they had been uh axed into and
or like what would you pillage exploded or exploded. It
was all there, All the all the gear on board
was there. So there was a lot to salvage, in
other words, because not only can you salvage the ship,
but the cargo exactly. And what had come out to
(33:42):
like between forty five and eighty grand and today eight
dollars is what he could have potentially gotten for salvaging
this thing. Yeah, because the at the time, the insurers
owed a reward to whoever salvaged the ship like this
um and and it could run up to a pcent
of the value of the cargo or the ship mutual
of Nova Scotia big good dollars, which I mean, man,
(34:05):
you want to see a board stuffed with neck beards
go to that bank. Oh that's good. Um alright, So they,
like you said, decided to do the smart thing and
the right thing because and it was his friend, just
besides the fact that, I mean, anyone would have tried
to salvage the ship, but it was also his pal.
(34:28):
So I think that probably had a little to do
with him saying or maybe it was just all the money. No,
I think it was both. I'm sure he was concerned.
I've read accounts that he was. He was concerned by this,
he said, I very concerned. Yeah, are are are the end?
So they take this boat. They actually took um. There
was three guys. One of them was Oliver Davo, who
(34:50):
was um the first mate of the day Gracia. He
was in charge of sailing this very important note. Yeah.
He he sailed with just two other guys, this um
the Mary Celeste. They pumped out the water from the hold,
they fixed the sales, and the night of the day
that they found it, they set sail for Gibraltar and
(35:12):
just three dudes sailed this thing successfully a thousand kilometers
from where it was found onto Gibraltar, where they took
it to the salvage court and said pay up. That's right.
And this is where things get a little bit weird,
because there was a man there, the Queen's Proctor in Gibraltar,
(35:33):
by the name of Frederick Sali flood Man that could
not be more British, and he basically said, mm hmm,
this is uh. You said there was nobody there at all.
There's no explanation for any of this, and you want, uh,
the equivalent of of eight dollars, thank you, west tag.
(35:58):
I think I think there was. I think that was
in their dollars. Two. No, it' says contemporary estimate. Doesn't
that mean no contemporary at the time? Oh okay, I
think I think that was an estimate in their dollars.
Is there such a thing as contemporary at the time?
(36:18):
Didn't that always mean? Now? I don't know, I gotta
I could have gotten it wrong. It's entirely possible. Alright,
Well it's it's and we're just figuring stuff out here, folks,
so give us a break. So it's in their dollars,
so I'm almost positive. Okay, Well, at any rate, he
was solely. Flood said, this is um seems really hinky
(36:41):
to me, guys, and devote you, sir, since you boarded
the thing first, you sailed it here, you are the
star witness in this case. Uh. He gave his testimony.
It was very clear, nothing weird about it. He was
very honest because by all accounts, they had nothing to hide.
And but Sally Floods just was suspicious from the beginning. Yes,
(37:04):
so much so that during this investigation, and this would
be like going to probate court and all of a sudden,
the representative for the state accuses you of murdering your grandma.
Who's state? Who's the state you're in charge of taking
through probate and then suddenly there's this murder investigation, right,
just based on the prosecutors suspicions, right, Well, and then
(37:28):
he disappeared without a trace. Well, oh yeah, that's a
big one to you know, I forgot that part. But
but so that's basically what happened to these guys. So
they were pretty surprised by this, and Sally Flood launched
this investigation. They they inspected the Mary Celeste, They found
marks on this the railing which sally Flood was like,
(37:48):
these are clearly hatchet marks. There was discoloration on Captain
Briggs's sword, this is clearly blood. Well it turned out
that the hatchet marks, the axe marks, were actually from
the construction and of the um of the ship. That
was an axe mark. So no violence there. There wasn't
blood on briggs sword. It was just rust. But um,
(38:09):
sally Flood was so determined to prosecute these guys that
he suppressed the test results. Um that that showed that
this was not blood on the sword, that it was
actually russ. He really wanted to get these two. Well yeah,
and here's the deal. I think things really ramped up when, um,
here's what happened before all of this, like uh, deep investigation.
(38:32):
Remember that Morehouse still has his ship that was waylaid.
And so he says, hey, devote, I gotta stay here
for this thing to collect this dough you keep. You
just go on to Genoa you've already testified, and take
our cargo a petroleum because I gotta get this stuff here.
I'm losing money. And so he did so, and so
all of a sudden, Solely Flood was like whoa, whoa, whoa,
(38:53):
he was the he was the number one witness, and
you've just sent this guy away, so now I'm super
suspicious up but Devote came back. He was like, what what,
what's going on? Everybody? So finally, um solid Flood just
couldn't come up with any evidence of foul play, but
(39:13):
apparently did raise enough suspicion that the probate judge said,
you know what, We'll give you guys a reward, but
it's gonna be like a tenth of what you actually deserved.
So they got a reward of sevounds um, which was
jack even in that day. Um, and they they were
(39:37):
allowed to go on their way. The Mary Celeste was
finally released in February. This this all begin in December.
She was released in February to finally carry her cargo
of alcohol to Genoa for Genoa and um, that would
have been that. And what's weird is when you think
about this ghost ship, you just think like, well, obviously
(39:59):
they they took her out of service or commission. I
gotta remember, this is a business venture ship in those days,
just like they are today. It's a business venture and
business people are not exactly the sentimental types usually, so
once she got to Genoa, they got a new crew,
a new captain, and put her right back into service again.
So as you say, it just is back out there
(40:22):
on the market again, um, taking cargo around the world.
And it ran a ground off a reef of Haiti
and five and this was all. This is just kind
of a weird ending to this ship that was super
unlucky or maybe curse who knows. Of course that stuff
isn't real, but um, it ran aground in Haiti as
(40:46):
part of this insurance fraud scheme. So they cooked up
this scheme. Who was the what was the guy's name,
the captain, Captain Gilman Perkins. All right, so here's what
he did. He basically it like any insurance fraud you
could imagine today. Like when I was a kid, there
was this uh you know, I didn't grow up in
(41:07):
a big neighborhood. I grew up on a street with
like seven houses and it was a dirt road until
I was like twelve. With the murder house. Now, oh
what murder house? Was it a murder house or a
haunted house? I can't remember. There was one down the
street from you that you were scared to death. Oh yeah,
that this was that. So that one was torn down,
but a big house was built in its place, but
(41:29):
the old barn from the murdery haunted house was still there,
and my brother and I would used to go exploring,
is what we'll call it now. We basically busted into
this barn. We're just checking things out one day, and
then about two weeks later the thing burned down. And
I remember being a little kid in these insurance detectives,
(41:51):
that's what they're called. They are now insurance whatever investigators
I claims investigating. They came by and questioned Scott and
I were like, what was in that thing? Because this
guy is claiming like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth
of I can't remember what all he said was in there,
and you know, we're a little kids, so we just
told the truth. We're like, none of that stuff was
(42:11):
in there. We stole. That was a bunch of old
foule cabinets and just a bunch of junk. It was
just like a junk barn. So I'm not even I
need to ask my mom. I'm not sure whatever happened
with that, but the guy's probably still in jail because
of eight year old Chuck good. That's funny. You got
some guys sent up the river. The law prevailed. But
that's basically what happened here is this guy purposely wrecks
(42:36):
the ship and says, man, there was a lot of
really valuable stuff on board. I was I was toting
a bunch of bass ale, like the real bass ale
that we still enjoyed today. Uh. And then what else
was there was a bunch of really expensive shoes. Cutlery, yeah,
a bunch of cutlery, fine fish, fine butter. And what
was in there a bunch of garbage. It was so
(42:58):
so this guy purposely runs the ship the ground. It's
insured by five different insurers for a total of thirty
four grand in eighteen seventy two dollars contemporary dollars. And
and they probably would have gotten away with this, uh.
But the captain, Gilman Perkins, went ashore and sold salvage
(43:20):
rights to this cargo, this fine cargo that was supposedly
on the ship to a local um salvage person in Haiti.
And had had he not conn the salvager, then they
may again they may have gotten away with this. But
the salvager went aboard to get this to recover this cargo,
this bass, this um, great butter, great shoes, cutlery, all
(43:43):
this stuff and found, like you said, just pure nastiness. There.
There's a bunch of junk, a l A lot of
the bottles weren't even filled. There were dog collars instead
of shoes. Yeah, what else. The cutlery, I know, the
cutlery was dog collar. These boots were old galoshes. Yeah,
the women's fine shoes. And the butter was the butter
(44:07):
was rank slush, I think is what it was called.
So this con this con man or the salvagers like
I've been conned, and alerts the authorities who get on
the case and finally track it all the way back
to Boston and Captain Perkins, the last captain of the
Mary Celeste. Remember the first captain died, the third or
fourth captain disappeared, and the last captain of the ship
(44:27):
is facing the gallows for bearer Tree, which is the
deliberate destroying of a ship, narrowly avoided being executed for it. Um.
I think the jury came back seven to five and
he got off just narrowly avoided being killed for it.
The the article I read by a guy named Paul Collins.
(44:51):
Um supposed that the jury just couldn't bring themselves to
kill a person for an insurance fraud scheme. And that
was that was it. And now actually a couple of
years after they changed the law so that Bara Tree
was no longer a capital offense. Um, but you could
still get in big trouble for it. But a jury
would be more likely to convict if it didn't mean
(45:11):
your death, you know. So the the Mary Celeste run
aground on this reef met its fate when I guess
the government of Haiti paid for um it to be
dowsting kerosene instead of flame. All right, well let's take
a break and we'll come back and talk a little
bit about how the legend of the Mary Celeste lived
(45:31):
on and then what may have actually happened that faithful
day in November. Alright, So the Mary Celeste, it wasn't
(46:04):
some huge sensational story of the time. Um. Locally it
probably got a little news, but it wasn't like, you know,
it didn't sweep the world. Um. But there was a
story written by one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uh called
j have a cook. Jepson's statement is the worst made
(46:27):
up name I've ever heard in Cornhill Magazine. Also worst
magazine name ever. Yeah, but it was like a huge
magazine at the time. I know it outsold Cornhole Magazine. Right. Uh,
so he write, he writes a story, and what it
is is basically this sensationalistic, uh fake account of the
(46:47):
Mary Celeste. But everyone takes it as real. Yeah, and
he renamed the ship the Marie Celeste. I don't know
if it was a mistake on his part or whatever,
but that also muddies the waters these days too, as
far as Google searches go. Yeah, so everyone thought this
thing was real. Um, all these basically presented a bunch
of things is fact made up a bunch of stuff like, um,
(47:11):
that the tea was still hot and steaming when they
climbed aboard, and the beds were still warm, and uh
it was sailing perfectly and fully sailed, and breakfast was
half eaten, and like there's a cigar still burning. None
of this stuff was true. It was all cooked up
to make the myth just even creepier. But a lot
(47:32):
of people, even today, I still think that stuff is
kind of true. Did he did he make all that up?
Or was it just kind of added to later on.
Well I think I don't know what exactly he made up,
but it basically over the years, everyone just started adding
stuff like that the lifeboat was still there. You know,
none of that stuff was true. Right, So, Um, all
(47:55):
of those those facts I'm making scare quotes as you
can see, Um, they are they they they lend credence
to like really outrageous solutions to this mystery. Right, Like
there's been a lot of well some some aren't exactly
outragious or preposterous, they're just the evidence doesn't support him.
Some are just totally outrageous, right, So you can kind
(48:16):
of divide them into different categories, like the natural um phenomenon.
There could have been a seaquake, um, which I guess happens,
and that usually disturbs the sea above when the sea
floor has a massive earthquake, waterspouts, rogue waves. Remember we
did a really good episode on rogue waves. Um, giant squid,
(48:39):
giant octopus, which fall under the subcategory sea monster. That's
the natural stuff sigment the sea monster. Yeah, Um, all right,
then there's piracy and murder. Uh these just for the
time would make a little more sense. Um, Like Conan
(49:02):
Doyle said, uh, that there was an ex slave bent
on revenge who just wanted to kill white people and
that was in his story, so that that clearly ramped
things up. There was a movie in the thirties with
Bella Legosi that he was one of the crew members
was a murderous sailor with a hook. Oh really, all right,
(49:24):
well they always had hooks. Um. Captain Briggs was overcome
with religious mania, killed everyone in board, including his family,
then killed himself. Uh. Then there was the mutiny theory
that everyone got into this alcohol that you couldn't even drink. No,
he would die like almost immediately. Yeah, and I guess
just got the drunken murderers, the drunken murder rampage. You
(49:48):
know what happens when you drink a little, you just
want to kill right exactly. But do you remember, um,
I guess in our Prohibition episode, it was shown years
on that the US government had poison and the bootleg
hooch supply natured alcohol and people died and went trying
from it. This is this stuff, Yeah, that's how they
put into the supply well. And then there's the just
(50:10):
the kind of mundane pirate pirate try like, hey, this
was where there were North African pirates, and that's probably
what happened, is there were it was just a regular
run of the middle pirate operation. Yeah, but whether it's
like any kind of violence like a um religious fervor
or pirates or something like that. There was not any
(50:32):
sign of struggle. Remember, and the one lifeboat was missing,
so there it would seem that if they got off
the ship, they probably got off willingly rather than um
there having been some sort of violence. Yeah. And then
the also the two brothers. There are a couple of
brothers who were to the crew members Volkert and boy Lorenzen,
(50:56):
and they were suspects for a little while because none
of their personal possessions were found. What apparently there was
no motive whatsoever. And a descendant of them said, you know,
they had lost all their gear and a previous shipwreck,
so just none of that makes any sense. They were
good guys, right, so probably was not murder rightly. Plus
(51:18):
also the idea that the crew had come across another
ship pirated it turned pirate all of a sudden, uh,
And we're led by Briggs the idea that and then
just just took this other ship and set off set
sail to start a new life elsewhere. Um, it doesn't
make much sense on its face, but even if you
dig down just one more degree and remember that they
(51:40):
left their son Arthur behind. She became an orphan on
the day that the day Gratia found the Mary Celeste.
That's even it lends even less credence to to that.
So yeah, again, he was fairly dim weighted they left
them behind. Not a very likable kid. He had a
real temper for no good reason. Didn't like cake. Who
(52:01):
doesn't like cake? So um the murder piracy or lastly,
so remember the Captain Moorehouse dined with Captain Briggs and
his wife the night before they headed out, and then
Captain Moorehouse is the one who found the ship and
claimed salvage rights to it. The idea that it was
(52:23):
fraud and maybe a fraudulent scheme cooked up that one's
really dismissed too, again by the presence of Arthur. Arthur
ruined everything. So you can dismiss murder piracy or fraud. Typically,
what about paranormal Let's go ahead and dismiss that too, Okay,
because I don't think that the bebun To triangle eight
(52:45):
them or that aliens. It's aliens, man, I don't think
that happened. Yeah, that's a big one. Uh So let's
just go ahead and not even talk about that too
much because that's dumb. So that that Frederick sally Floods
obsession with this whole thing at the time contemporarily um
document presented like the documented evidence we have concerning the case.
(53:09):
So it's good that he did this, that he was
gripped by this this paranoia of the suspicion, right, um,
because we do know some facts about the thing. We
know that like, like we said, the ship was found
with just three three sails up and the rest were
either blown down or unfurled. The lifeboat was missing. There
was a rope dangling over the side from the back
(53:31):
of the ship into the water. Nine of the Sevre
one casks were intact, but we're actually empty, and on
closer inspection they were made of red oak, which is
more porous than white oak, which the other seventeen hundred
and one UM barrels were made of and were intact
and still full. So we know these things about the
(53:54):
ship that that that are actually correct, and they've been
put together other to to kind of create this explanation
that again isn't definitive, doesn't prove it once and for all.
What happened that will never happen now, which I love.
But there's there's a pretty good explanation I think that
we both kind of agree is is the likeliest explanation. Yeah,
(54:18):
so those casks that that leaked but did not explode
or anything. Uh, there could have been a smell. There
could have been a sound. There could have been just
some indication that maybe this ship is about to blow
up or we are in danger. Uh, they had taken
on a little water that might have played into it.
(54:38):
But what really everyone thinks played into it is like
we said at the beginning, was that he had his
wife and and toddler aboard, so he was taking no chances,
which would thoroughly explain why they got off of that
boat really quickly at the very first signs that something
could be wrong. So that those nine red oak barrels
(54:59):
that were empty had three hundred gallons of d natured
highly flammable alcohol in them, it would yeah, it would
have smelled, It could have created a fireball explosion. Um,
it could have blown the hatches off it could have
done a lot of things that that would have made
a reasonable person, especially when that's also concerned for the
life of his wife and child, say, the likeliest thing
(55:22):
we should do here, the most reasonable thing we should
do here is get off of the ship. So considering
that there was this alcohol aboard, some of it was missing, um,
and that the lifeboat was gone, and that the log
book showed that they were within sight of land the
last time they had made any kind of entry, supports
(55:43):
the idea that they had all gotten into the lifeboat
willingly because probably that alcohol and then the the the
water that the ship had taken on. Yeah. And apparently
in two thousand and six it was a study at
University College of London where they they tried to produce
what that explosion might have looked like and uh sounded
(56:04):
like and uh they did it with butchane, So I
guess is that about the same thing. I don't know
why they used putane instead of alcohol vapors. I have
no idea why, but they feel like it was pretty definitive. Yeah,
And so basically it caused a big brilliant flame and
made a sound, but because it was this vapor, there
was no it didn't like burn everything up, It didn't
(56:25):
scorch anything, There was no soot, There was no evidence.
So if this would have happened on board this guy's
got his wife and his toddler, that would have been
enough to create a panic. And that that's where my
money is, for sure, for sure. And plus also I
mean like that that the explosion of the exploding alcohol
theory had been around for a while but had been
dismissed because they were like, well, it would have left
(56:47):
some evidence. But this study showed that no, it could
have actually blown blown up and scared the heck out
of these people and gotten him off this boat into
the lifeboat which they would have had um connected to
the ship, the Mary Celeste by this four foot or
four hundred yards. It was a very long rope inch
thick rope called the Halliard, and they had connected the
(57:10):
lifeboat to it. And what they supposed happened was that, um,
they kept a few of the sales down, some of
them still furled uh to let the ship keep going,
but at a slow pace because it was going to
they were going to have to ride behind it for
an indefinite period of time. And that the wind caught
it just right, sped the ship up, snapped the line,
(57:32):
and then within an hour the lifeboat was adrift with
the Mary Celeste out of sight. So was the idea
that they got in the boat attached with the rope
attached to just say, hey, let's like get away from
it and see what happens here. Yes, okay, And then
and then it just starts going. The rope is gone,
and then they're like, well, I can't catch it now, right,
(57:53):
And and they would have been left a drift at
sea um to die, which is what everybody thinks happened. Yeah,
And I guess at the time there would be uh,
unless I got really lucky or unlucky in the rowboat
eventually uh washed ashore somewhere. They would just be no trace, right, Yes,
(58:14):
they just were fish food. Yeah. I mean if they're
out in the Atlantic, especially if they just six miles
away from an island that's in the middle of nowhere.
It's pretty pretty middle of nowhere. So if you're in
a small boat there, you would you it would be
very easy to vanish without a trace forever. I bet that,
like that story is the sad one is what those
(58:35):
final days were like. Yes, that kid. Yeah, heartbreaking. So uh,
that's the story of the Mary Celeste. Good job, good job,
you Chuck. I feel like we kicked the rest off
the sword on this one. If you want to know
more about the Mary Celeste, there is plenty more to
dig into. This is a nice rabbit hole to jump down.
(58:57):
If you want to do that kind of thing. Just
go search Google. Say no, Google, I mean Mary Celeste
and uh started off. You'll have fun and in the
In the meantime, it's time for listener, ma'am, I'm gonna
call this local listener. Hey, guys, my name is Sally
and I am a sophomore at Emrine University. Started listening
(59:19):
to Stuff You Should Know two years ago when I
was on a school exchange in Beijing. But began as
a fun way to bide time and bumper to bumper traffic,
turned into a complete obsession. You're a quick banter made
me feel at home on the other side of the
world while you're engaging in well developed topics. Reignited my
love of learning. Uh. Since leaving e Marie, I frequently
imagine bumping into you, guys and Decatur in Atlanta and
(59:41):
having the opportunity to chat about your journey from college
kids at you g A to potentially the most interesting
and vibrant guys i've heard. Wow, you're vibrant, buddy. Thank you.
I'm fascinated by how you do what you do, and
there's nothing I would love more than be a fly
on the wall of the show. From your creative process
to your tangential tidbits, whatever topic you happen to be covering.
(01:00:03):
I'm fully captivated by every facet. It's nice, huh. I
still have not declared a major. She wrote a lot
more really nice stuff, but um, I had to edit
it for content or for time. I have still not
declared a major, and I'm still essentially a ball of
frenetic energy. But you guys have helped me because you
(01:00:23):
helped me tap into that phonetic energy and productively exercise
my burning and satiall desire to learn to think the
question and you grow now as a young adult and
until the nurses need to pinch my oxygen tank and
physically made me stop. Well a million, thanks that is,
Sally Jinks. Thanks a lot, Sally. That's pretty great. Um,
(01:00:43):
very sweet, Yeah it is. And good luck with the
rest of your schooling. Okay. If you want to get
in touch with us and pay us some high compliments
like Sally Dude, We're always down with that. You can
tweet to us at josh um Clark or s y
s K podcast. You can hit us up on Facebook
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Chuck Bryant. You can send us all an email to
(01:01:05):
stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
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Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
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Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland.
The Triumvirate, the hat Trick, the Trio, the triage trifecta French.
(00:24):
There you go? Is that Latin M? I don't know
if I just know it as a gambling term. Well,
whatever it is, it's stuff you should know. Hey, Happy
New Year, Happy New Year to YouTube buddy, Happy new Year, Jerry.
Uh so in real time. This is our first recording.
(00:44):
Uh I know this always feels a little bit weird
when we say things like happy New Year, and what
February late January? No, it's like next week we ate
up the kiddie. Did we get that slim? Oh? Yeah,
during our long break which was wonderful. Yeah, it was
so nice, Chuck, I actually get this relaxed. Yes it was.
(01:08):
I did I unwound. I My cortisol levels decreased, although
the spare tire didn't actually go down with it. It
was replaced by frosting. Um my webcam begs to differ
because I was peeking in on you. The whole time. Well, okay,
I did a lot of work, but I did relax
in between. I saw you pacing wondering what to do
(01:31):
with myself, clipping orkids, clipping orchids. Man, my orchids are
doing so well right now. It's super cold out of course,
right but I've got to keep them outside because they
have a bit of an ant advest station. Haven't figured
out how to do anything about that one yet, but
I built like a little impromptu cold frame around him,
and I have a mini croc pot warming water inside
(01:54):
the cold frame. So to the orchids. They're in Ecuador
right now during the rainy season. It's like ounsizing. Have
you seen that yet? No? That means nothing to you? Then, No,
it's I have no idea what you're talking about. What
you have to tell me now? What is it? Well,
it's that new movie, the new Alexander Paine movie with
Matt Damon. Does that have to do with or kids?
(02:16):
Has to do with Ecuador? Shrinking people down and living
in miniature Oh that sounds kind of cool. So they'll
be like a miniature crock pot. That's what got me
on that tangent. Did you ever see that documentary. I'm
sorry everybody who wants to stay on track, But just
one more thing. Did you ever see that documentary Chuck
about the the woman who created miniature crime scenes for
(02:38):
UM like police to study and learn from. No, you
should check it out. It was it was this lady
who did exactly what I just said. They made a
documentary about her and how much these things have actually
helped teach techniques and how radical a change it was,
and presumption of guilt and that kind of thing. You
know how much I love many of your things, though,
(03:01):
well you would love this. I'm surprised you haven't seen it. Then, No,
because what was I think it was in UM Chicago,
the museum in Chicago and the downstairs I want to
say basement, but whatever, the lowest floor is. They have
the works of the woman who created all the miniature
UM house interiors and it's just like I could have
(03:23):
spent all day in there. Yeah, I'll bet so, You're
amazing you would. I know some there is something about
things that are really small, things that are really small,
and things that were once above ground that are now underwater.
Have you you ever get the little uh, a little
tiny Tabasco bottle. M I just want to hug it.
It's about as prized the Tabasco bottle as you can get. Man,
(03:45):
I love small stuff like that. Yeah, well I know
what you're getting next Christmas. Some tiny yeah, well some
tiny tabascosy. I'm gonna be like, hug these, give me
a small anything. Okay, good to know, good to know. Alright,
so let's talk. Let's wrap all right. You know I
love me a mystery chuck. I think you do too. Yeah,
(04:08):
this is a good one. The ghost ship. When you yeah,
when you cross mystery with history, it's it just blows
up the spot, The whole spot blows up. And that's
what this one is like. I remember learning about the
Mary Celestack when I was a young Tyke probably filmed that,
like Time Life Unexplained Phenomena series. I'm pretty sure that's right. Yeah.
(04:31):
They were great. They were just chuck full of just
outright lies and and mistaken facts and things like that,
but they were perfect for like a little ten year
old imagination. You know, you were tiny. What do you
mean you were tiny? Ten year old? Your imagination was
big though I wasn't tiny. Ten. I was really starting
(04:52):
to work on some chubs by then, Yeah I was
I'm going in reversal, or I was skinny ten year old?
Oh yeah, I was never a skinny kid. Yeah. Well anyway,
it's just division little kind of chuvy ten year old
Josh sitting there reading a time life book, learning about
the Mary Celeste This, like you said, ghost ship and
(05:14):
just my hair standing up on and going, this is
what a great universe to live in, Yeah, where there
can be ghost ships? Right, yeah, and we'll get to uh,
at the end, we will reveal the big well, no
one knows for sure what happened, but no, um, we'll
get to what the best guess is at the very end.
(05:35):
Or should we just say that right now? No, No,
it be weird. I think no, I think that, but
I subscribe to the best guess as we'll see. All right,
so way back machine time, right, but this is our
our seafaring version. Well, no, we're going to old New York. Okay,
so we don't need to get wet yet. No, not yet.
We're Daniel day Lewis reigned Supreme. Have you seen that yet? Oh? No,
(05:59):
you talking about the gangs of New York, New York,
about the new and phantom thread where do you hear
about these movies? That's my job, dude. Oh yeah, that's right.
Um yea that I don't think that movie is even
out yet, actually, at least not in Atlanta. You know,
we're like a second second tier city. Yeah, that's true,
(06:19):
but I suspect not for long because I think Atlanta
is actually surpassed l A. Now as far as like
film production goes. Have you heard that? I could certainly
believe it. Yeah. So does that mean we're second tier
in l A's third tier? Maybe so A two point five. Alright,
So are you talking early November eight seventy two, Yes,
(06:43):
November four, to be exact, on Monday? Are you talking
about the Astor House in New York City, New York? Yeah? Man,
And this is at a time where like, have you
ever read Devil in the White City? Now, man, I
still have not read that. You should read. It's pretty good.
But one of the things that the book does is
it reproduces end us from these dinners that they had
when they were planning the expo, and these things were
(07:04):
like they had chapters. Basically, they'd smoke cigarettes in the middle.
There be a cigarette round because you had to do
something to keep all of this food down and and
help the process of digestion. It was crazy how much
they would eat. So I can imagine the food was
pretty good at the Astor House in eighteen seventy two. Yeah,
but everything back then was like crown roast and rack
(07:28):
of lamb and it was just like huge trays of beef,
right live pig that you beat to death at your
table and then start eating. God, they did it. Believe
me that time Life books told me so. Alright, So
at this dinner table, we have um a few people.
We have one captain David Moorehouse, and then his buddy
(07:49):
he was a ship's captain. His buddy another ship's captain,
because you know, they didn't hang out with one another,
um captain Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs. Uh. And they're sitting
down with Briggs his wife Sarah. And I don't know
did did Moore House have his wife there or was
he That's not the impression I have. I think that
Sarah was there because they were. She was shipping out
(08:10):
the next day too. I think he was batching it.
In other words, but they were good buddies, both captains
both set to set sail out of New York for
the Mediterranean, and I guess they were just talking shop. Yeah,
I mean, I think they both grew up in Nova Scotia,
so they may have known each other. There a couple
(08:32):
of sault the old sea dogs, but good people from
from from all accounts, and they I mean the fact
that these guys were having dinner in New York on
November four, eight two totally unremarkable in most senses, right,
but a month later it would be incredibly ironic. And
(08:53):
tell him why, Well, because more houses ship the h
is it Digratia, I think, So okay, we'll call it
that d E I g r A t I A
de gracia. Uh, we'll sailing along and and we'll get
to the specifics of how this happened a second. But
they came upon his buddy ship, the Mary Celeste, and
(09:15):
by all accounts was probably like, hey, that's uh, that's Briggs.
We need to go over and check out how how
Spoon's Briggs is doing right, And they weren't doing well
because nobody aboard the ship was aboard the ship. No,
I mean, just seeing the ship would have called him
by surprise, because he shipped out a full week later
(09:36):
bound for the same city, leaving from the same ports,
so they should have never caught up to them. And
then the fact that, yeah, when they boarded it and
there was no one aboard, a mystery that endures to
this day was born that day. That is correct, all right,
So the Mary Celeste very famous ghost ship. But what
a lot of people don't know, Chuck, is that even
(09:56):
before the Mary Celeste became this famous ghost ship, it
was already considered pretty unlucky. Actually. Yeah, so eighteen sixty
was when uh not even named the mary Celestia, it
was called the Amazon at the time. Was born in
Nova Scotia, and I believe the very first voyage, what
(10:16):
you would call a maiden voyage, was a wholesome some
timber to London across the Atlantic. Yeah, that's what she
pretty pretty routine. Yeah, didn't go very well, no, it
didn't know. Her first captain was a guy named Robert McLellan,
and he apparently had had a cold, and when they
(10:36):
shipped out, he took such a turn for the worst
that they had to turn around and go back home,
and he died two days after they got back. In
the moment, can you imagine back in those days, if
you get a cold, you're like, well, I got about
a one in ten chance of dying, right, maybe even
worse than that. Right, Yeah, so this this, but think
about this, like, first of all, the sailors are fairly
(10:57):
um superstitious, bunt, right, So a maiden voyage, anything that's
like hinky or weird or bad about a maiden voyage
automatically cursed ship. So the captain dying on a maiden
voyage that can't even be completed, that's a cursed ship
right out of the gate, I would say so. But
this is also a business venture, so it's not like
(11:19):
the owners gave up on the thing. They said, well,
just get in another captain, you superstitious dogs, and get
back out there. And that's what they did, yes, And
captain number two was John Nutting Parker, great name is
a good name, and he also sailed to London. And
when they left, they actually encountered some trouble right off
the bat. They hit some fishing equipment off the coast
(11:42):
of Maine, pressed on as you do, and did reach London,
um dumped off their cargo, set sail for home. And
as they set sail for home, they actually sunk another
boat in the English Channel. Yes, cursed ship, cursed ship. Yeah,
and that other boat was probably pick a lot right exactly. Yeah,
(12:04):
And the the captain of the other ship even stubbed
his toe on the way down afterward. It was terrible.
So again, this is a business venture. The owners said, whatever,
that was somebody else's ship, our ships. Fine, we're gonna
keep doing this London to um or New York to
London timber route. They also did some West Indies trade
(12:25):
for a while, and everything was fairly normal for a while. Um,
and then a freak storm caught the ship. And I'm not, like,
I'm not a seafarer by any means whatsoever. So I
don't know if this actually is like an inordinate amount
of things to happen to one ship, but it does
seem like a lot, and just you know, less than
(12:47):
a decade for a single ship. So she the first
captain dies, second captain sinks another ship. They run into
some fishing tackle, and then in October of eighteen sixty seven,
she's running ground in a storm and it's so bad
off that the owner's sake, we're abandoning here. Yeah, that
must be pretty bad. So they literally left the ship
there to decompose or I guess you would call it
(13:11):
rott if you're Wooden. Sure, I guess would decomposes, right
or is that just rot? I think rod is more slang, okay,
and it sounds grosser to like cool, right. Uh. And
at that point, the ship was bought by dude name
Alexander McBean, also from Nova Scotia, also a great name,
(13:31):
and then he I mean, the ship is changing hands. Basically,
he sold that shipwreck. And I guess that was just
a thing at the time. You would by a shipwreck,
maybe sell it in turn a quick profit, probably not
a ton of money. But he sold that shipwreck to
a dude who then sold it to another dude name
(13:52):
Richard Haynes. So he paid about fifty bucks for it,
which is about according to our favorite inflation calculator, which
is west Egg. That's correct. It's just got a good
name and plus plus it's easy to use, and it's
been around forever. Yeah, and they're there. I mean I
(14:14):
think it goes up to now, which is pretty good.
That's pretty pretty good. They're always just like a year behind,
which I can respect. That's fine. They need the data,
so Haynes went through bankruptcy and that boat was seized,
and then that was sold to a group led by
a man named James Winchester, and uh, Haynes had fixed
it up a little bit, but Winchester really put a
(14:35):
lot of money into it, lengthened it to over a
hundred feet, added a deck. Basically the show would have
been called Flip This Brigantine starring Vanilla Ice. You like
that one, Huh? I've seen that show? Have you've seen it?
For like five minutes? I'll tell you. I'll tell you this.
(14:57):
This proves that I relaxed this vacation. You're ready? Yeah?
I got hooked on an Animal Planet show called Insane Pools?
Have you heard of it? I do watch one of
those pool shows, but I don't think it's that one.
It's another one. I was like, I have to go
to bed now or else I'm gonna be up to
like five am watching this marathon about a pool renovation
(15:20):
show that has nothing to do with animals. It was.
It was bizarre, how just it just got its hooks
in me? So yeah that that happens from time to
time with me too. And you know what scares me
about those pools though, is most of them are just
amazing and you have like grottos and waterfalls and all
that cool stuff. But some people opt for those death
tubes where you can like swim through a thing to
(15:43):
another thing. Oh. I haven't seen one with that yet. Yeah,
they're like, hey, we wanna we want to be able
to swim through a tube, but to another part of
the pool and potentially, you know, get stuck and die.
I see it. That would be really awful. I don't
think that ever happens. So they need to just leave
a stick of butter at the mouth of that thing,
so you can grease yourself up real good as you're
(16:03):
going through you know, your pool, and just have a
sheen of butter floating at the top of it kind
of rots in the sunlight. I worked at a pool
like that once that It was not butter, but there
was a sheen. I don't know what it was. I'm
sure it was some block, Yeah, I guess, so it
has to be. What else is it gonna be? I
(16:23):
don't know. It could be there's probably a little body
fixed in there. But does that cause a rainbow sheen? Oh?
A rainbow she No, I don't know. What was There
should not be a rainbow sheen on your pool unless
you had like pool like swimmers covered in gasoline going
into your pool. That would explain it all that might
(16:44):
have been it. Alright, So Winchester and by the way,
Winchester is just the major investor. Uh, there was a
very notable other investor. And what was his name? Oh,
you're asking me, it's been a couple of weeks. As
a sorry about that. You're just staring up in the space.
That was weird. His name was Benjamin Spooner Briggs. That
(17:07):
you will notice is the dude from Dinner. Yes, so
he's He's not only the captain of the Mary Celeste,
he was a two fifth stake and investor in it.
And um, what's notable is that at the time he
invested in the Mary Celeste, he and his brother were
actually considering getting out of the um the sailing game
(17:28):
and and buying a hardware store together in New Bedford,
mass And instead Briggs said, now you know what, this
is too good of a deal. This is this is
a great ship. I'm gonna pour my savings into a
two fifth stake, and not only that, I'll be the
captain of it, and not only that for its maiden voyage.
I'm gonna bring my wife and daughter along with me. Yeah.
(17:49):
It's one of those sliding doors things like should have
gone into hardware, Yeah yeah, rather than sailing into history.
Um So, by the way, that when the ship was
officially renamed the Mary Celeste from the Amazon is when
it was reregistered, I guess, and I looked it up.
I was kind of curious because there is a Marie Celeste,
(18:10):
which was a fairly famous World War two or I'm sorry, uh,
civil worship, and I was just curious where the name
came from. And nobody really knows, but they said there
is a theory that it was an error by the
painter because it's an English and a French name and
it's just a weird mix up to not have been
Marie and be Mary Celeste. So they think it might
have been either the Mary Sellers or another Marie Celeste.
(18:35):
So either way, who knows. Well even today though, like
still there's like some confusion when you if you google
Mary Celeste, Google says, do you mean Marie Celeste? And
I say no, Google, I mean Mary Celeste says, do
you mean Vanilla Ice? Vanilla Ice flipped his pool. Uh
so Briggs, like you said, brought along his wife, who
(18:59):
was at dinner, and then their two year old daughter,
Sophia Matilda. They left a little Arthur behind because he
was seven and he was in school, and they said,
we don't want to take a little Arthur out of school. No,
he was already pretty dim witted, so I no, I
don't know, but they didn't want to interrupt his schooling.
(19:20):
So they said, Arthur, you stay here with some relatives,
and they took Sophia Matilda with them. Um, and this
was a huge decision. I don't know if this is
unusual or not, but whatever, Briggs said, I'm bringing my
wife and daughter with me on this this ship on
on the Maiden voyage. And everyone I know they're like, oh,
good good, this will be fun. Um, well, we'll not
(19:42):
only have to work really hard for weeks that see,
we'll also have to entertain your two year old whenever
she wants right, and we can't right exactly. So um.
That decision, though probably had some effects on on the
voyage overall, definitely had an effect on who Briggs chose
(20:03):
for the crew. He you know, he had his wife,
his Ardor. He was known as a Christian, an upstanding person,
apparently didn't drink much, if at all. Um he was
known as fair, just level headed, and just an overall
honorable person, not just at sea, but in life you
know as well back on land. So he was pretty
(20:23):
well regarded. I'm assuming his wife was equally well regarded. Um,
and he because his family was on the boat with him,
he went to some some trouble to make sure that
the seven crew members that he picked were of upright
character themselves, that there weren't any shade balls, because you
don't want any shady sailors out in the middle of
(20:45):
the Atlantic Ocean with your wife and child. You don't
want that. So that that is to say that the
crew of the Mary Celeste on her maiden voyage with
Benjamin Briggs, his wife and daughter were all pretty pretty
top notch to act, Yeah, for sure. So Um, they
set sail. They what they were carrying was about seventeen
(21:08):
hundred actually sevent one to be exact, barrels of what's
called de natured alcohol. This is not rum, This is
not something you're gonna drink. It is undrinkable. It is
like fuel. Basically, industrial fuel, and they finally sit sail
in November seven, eighteen seventy two, bound for Italy, bound
for Genoa. And UM, I think we should probably take
(21:31):
a break right here. Let's do it, all right, We'll
be right back about the haunted ghost shoot alright, chuck, um,
(22:03):
So right, okay, So there's there were there was an investigation,
as you can imagine. We'll talk about that more later.
But this investigation determined that probably although they definitely ran
into some storms and heavy weather here there, but most
of the voyage of the Mary Celeste was fairly unremarkable overall, right.
(22:26):
It wasn't they did. It wasn't until the last five
days before they are suspected to have disappeared, that the
Mary Celestes voyage turned a little odd or became a
little unusual. And they figured out that, um, from looking
at the log books that within that last five days, UM,
(22:47):
Captain Briggs decided that he really should have seen land
by by this time. And if you're a captain, in
your chronometer, which is basically like from what I was
I was reading about this, it's like a portable time
zone that you can use for celestial navigation to to
(23:08):
basically tell exactly where you are in the world. Um,
it's a very valuable tool to have it. See, but
if your chronometer is is faulty, you're not necessarily going
to be where you think you are. So, based on
his calculations with his chronometer, he thought that they were
they should have seen land the Azores by then. Um,
(23:30):
this island chain in in the Atlantic, kind of towards Portugal.
It's like just like dead west of southern Portugal. Yeah,
I think the easternmost island of the Azores is like
four hundred miles west of Portugal something like that. Anyway,
I can imagine too, but it's I think it's also
basically in the middle of nowhere in the in the
(23:51):
mid Atlantic. It's one of those things. Or if you
do the Google map, you will see these tiny specs
and nothing but blue. Right, he's gotta start zooming out
to see where the heck you are, Right, it's like
the Hawaii of the Atlantic, I think. So he thought
that he should have seen the Azores by then, and
he hadn't, so I think he started to get a
(24:13):
little nervous because they changed course. They went northward, which
he suspected would have taken him towards the azoris and
he may have been either looking to kind of um
uh re re orient himself or just looking for haven.
Who knows, but they know that that they did change
(24:34):
course and that he wasn't where that he thought he was. Yeah,
and I also get the idea, which will job with
one of the theories is that he may have been
a little nervous having his two year old and his
wife aboard in general. Yeah, for sure, you know, I mean, yeah,
he's not just it's not just his safety now or
even the safety of the crew. It's his little kid
and his wife's safety. Of course, he's going to be
(24:55):
worried about that exactly. Man. I can't imagine having two
year old on a ship. What a nightmare. Good God,
it's going to cruise. You can experience it a million
times over. Yeah, because the cruise ship modernday cruise ship
is the same as a nineteenth century sailing vessel. It's
not like there's nothing to do. No, that's true. Although
(25:20):
they did have a melodeon, which I had to look
that up as well. It's like an accordion. Yeah, I
don't see why they call it something different, right, an
accordion with keys, all right, so on, well, oh, a
supported as opposed to what the little buttons? Oh, or
maybe it's the accordion with the buttons. It's one of
(25:42):
the two. Okay, you know what I'm talking. It's like
a weird Al Yankovic type instrument. Oh well, we should
get Aaron Cooper to write us, because he will surely do.
And they yes, I'm sure he. Um. So they would
have had that aboard, which would have been all the
all the pleasure you could imagine. Yeah, like one wouldn't
all all in an accordion is really kind of keep
(26:02):
it to year old occupied and the communal salt lick
in the middle of the above deck. Alright. So uh
the next morning, Um, they wake up in the Mary
Celeste actually sees land, which I can imagine if you
are a seaman out there in the nineteenth century and
you're a little worried. There's no more welcome sight than
(26:25):
seeing land, you know, after seeing nothing but water for
for weeks and weeks. So they see land. The log
book says they saw land there about six miles from
Santa Marilla, which is the easternmost of the Azores. And um,
this was sort of the last stop before you hit Portugal. Right.
(26:46):
I can't imagine they're like, there's just he just was
so relieved. So the reason we know this is not
because anybody on the Mary Celeste told anybody, at least
not verbally. They they found the law book and the
log slate, which is kind of like you're you're just
keeping track of stuff on the slate before you actually
transcribe it into the log book. And the log slate
(27:09):
was where they noted that eight am on November twenty five,
the Maryslist sighted land and by their calculations were six
miles off of Santa Maria Rights. So that was November. Yes,
they I guess they just had a nice Thanksgiving. Yeah
maybe with their salt lick. Now they had food, as
(27:31):
we will see. Uh So the remember the de Garcia
de Gatia de Garratia. I think that's it, that last one.
So the other ship that was being sailed by his buddy,
Captain Morehouse, remember uh Seamen John Johnson of that ship
said hey, cappy, uh, there's a there's another ship out here,
(27:56):
and it's about four miles further east from where that
log had placed. That ship. The Mary Celeste. Not only
that it was a good ten or eleven days later, right,
So this is all spelling trouble. Uh that there are
only three sails set the rest of the sales or
had either blown away weren't raised. None of this bodes well.
(28:18):
And Captain Moorehouse, I don't think he probably recognized from
that distance that it was the Mary Celeste yet, but
he sent his first mate Oliver de Vell and second
mate John Right and another dude and said get in
that boat row there and see what the heck is
going on? Right, So these guys to Vote and Right
were the ones who actually got on deck and and
(28:41):
investigated the Mary Celeste. And I read this one article
that I think just put it so perfectly, like just
ropes creaking, a door kind of banging open and closed
in in the wind, and just utter silence. As far
as humans are concerned, nobody on board the ship would
be so creepy. I think that that Oliver de Vaux
(29:03):
and John Wright probably experienced one of the creepiest experiences
that any human ever has in the history of people.
So is it creepier for Josh Clark Seaman Josh to
get upon the ship and find nobody aboard, but everything
(29:24):
seemingly okay, or to see dead bodies in each of
the bunks it would be okay. So it depends on
the position of the dead bodies. Are they just kind
of like crumpled and tossed, like they've been thrown down
onto the bed or something like that, Like are the
sitting up at at at the dinner table or sitting
(29:46):
up in bed or is it a Walt Disney ride,
That's That's what I'm saying, yeah, Or are they laying
there with purple robes and nikes Heaven's Gate style. Yeah,
that would be something as well. So to me, creepier
is I think no one there. I think it would
be more horrific to find the bodies, of course, but
(30:06):
creepier would be um, just finding a ghost chip, I agree.
I think because there's the absence of something that's supposed
to be there, and that's I think what what would
make it so creepy? Well, yeah, and I think the
thing that really makes it creepy, as we will see,
is that that was it wasn't like, hey, this ship
has clearly been pirate id and people there's blood on
(30:27):
the walls, and people have been killed. There was just nobody.
There no signs of distressed. Um, the the sex stan,
the chronomin chronometer. I know it's tougher than you think
to say the chronometer. Uh, the nav book they were gone,
but that log book was still there. So basically like
there was there was food, there was drinking water, There
(30:49):
were everyone's clothes were there. That little girls to the
salt look was there? Her two toys were there. Shoot,
there was the impression from her sleeping on the bed
in the captain's cabins for creepy it is, Um there
was there was not. There were no signs of violence.
There was no signs of like, um, of panic, no
(31:10):
kind of disorder. I mean, some things were out of order,
but it was the kind of stuff that you could
chalk up to a ship drifting at sea for a
week or so by itself, right, broken compass, like some
of the some of the sails have been blown down
onto the deck itself. Um, there was some water in
there and right. And then one of the things they found,
(31:34):
which was a pretty big clue was um improvised sounding rod,
which is basically just a stick with markings on it
to show feet right. Um. And they that you would
lower that into the hold to see what where the
water mark. H It's just to figure out how deep
water is in a hold. So they clearly knew that
(31:54):
there was water in the hold because they built the
sounding rod and it had been found on the deck
by the two guys from the day Grattia. Yeah, and
it was only about three and a half feet of
water by all accounts, and that's not that sounds like
a lot to a guy like me who's not an
experienced sailor, but apparently on a ship that size, that's
like no big whoop. One of the other things that
ties in with the water too, is they had two
(32:15):
pumps aboard. One of the pumps was found disassembled, so
there was basically like these guys came onto the ship
and there are all these these weird, out of context
things that were the result of decisions made by people
who who are now vanished, and they had to to
try to figure this out. But one of the first
(32:37):
things that came into their head eventually, I think, when
they went back to the day Grattia and told more
House what was going on. Um in pretty short order,
somebody said, well, we should probably take this ship to
Gibraltar with us. How about that, Because there's something called
salvage rights, and whether it was your friend who was
missing or what have you, you have been pretty foolish
(33:01):
to have just sure continued on your way and left
the Mary Celeste. Because what they found pretty quickly, and
this adds to the mystery itself as well, the Mary
Celeste was totally saleable. Well yeah, and I don't even
think we pointed out that all the all the denatured
alcohol that they were shipping was there and intact, like
(33:22):
it's not like they had been uh axed into and
or like what would you pillage exploded or exploded. It
was all there, All the all the gear on board
was there. So there was a lot to salvage, in
other words, because not only can you salvage the ship,
but the cargo exactly. And what had come out to
(33:42):
like between forty five and eighty grand and today eight
dollars is what he could have potentially gotten for salvaging
this thing. Yeah, because the at the time, the insurers
owed a reward to whoever salvaged the ship like this
um and and it could run up to a pcent
of the value of the cargo or the ship mutual
of Nova Scotia big good dollars, which I mean, man,
(34:05):
you want to see a board stuffed with neck beards
go to that bank. Oh that's good. Um alright, So they,
like you said, decided to do the smart thing and
the right thing because and it was his friend, just
besides the fact that, I mean, anyone would have tried
to salvage the ship, but it was also his pal.
(34:28):
So I think that probably had a little to do
with him saying or maybe it was just all the money. No,
I think it was both. I'm sure he was concerned.
I've read accounts that he was. He was concerned by this,
he said, I very concerned. Yeah, are are are the end?
So they take this boat. They actually took um. There
was three guys. One of them was Oliver Davo, who
(34:50):
was um the first mate of the day Gracia. He
was in charge of sailing this very important note. Yeah.
He he sailed with just two other guys, this um
the Mary Celeste. They pumped out the water from the hold,
they fixed the sales, and the night of the day
that they found it, they set sail for Gibraltar and
(35:12):
just three dudes sailed this thing successfully a thousand kilometers
from where it was found onto Gibraltar, where they took
it to the salvage court and said pay up. That's right.
And this is where things get a little bit weird,
because there was a man there, the Queen's Proctor in Gibraltar,
(35:33):
by the name of Frederick Sali flood Man that could
not be more British, and he basically said, mm hmm,
this is uh. You said there was nobody there at all.
There's no explanation for any of this, and you want, uh,
the equivalent of of eight dollars, thank you, west tag.
(35:58):
I think I think there was. I think that was
in their dollars. Two. No, it' says contemporary estimate. Doesn't
that mean no contemporary at the time? Oh okay, I
think I think that was an estimate in their dollars.
Is there such a thing as contemporary at the time?
(36:18):
Didn't that always mean? Now? I don't know, I gotta
I could have gotten it wrong. It's entirely possible. Alright,
Well it's it's and we're just figuring stuff out here, folks,
so give us a break. So it's in their dollars,
so I'm almost positive. Okay, Well, at any rate, he
was solely. Flood said, this is um seems really hinky
(36:41):
to me, guys, and devote you, sir, since you boarded
the thing first, you sailed it here, you are the
star witness in this case. Uh. He gave his testimony.
It was very clear, nothing weird about it. He was
very honest because by all accounts, they had nothing to hide.
And but Sally Floods just was suspicious from the beginning. Yes,
(37:04):
so much so that during this investigation, and this would
be like going to probate court and all of a sudden,
the representative for the state accuses you of murdering your grandma.
Who's state? Who's the state you're in charge of taking
through probate and then suddenly there's this murder investigation, right,
just based on the prosecutors suspicions, right, Well, and then
(37:28):
he disappeared without a trace. Well, oh yeah, that's a
big one to you know, I forgot that part. But
but so that's basically what happened to these guys. So
they were pretty surprised by this, and Sally Flood launched
this investigation. They they inspected the Mary Celeste, They found
marks on this the railing which sally Flood was like,
(37:48):
these are clearly hatchet marks. There was discoloration on Captain
Briggs's sword, this is clearly blood. Well it turned out
that the hatchet marks, the axe marks, were actually from
the construction and of the um of the ship. That
was an axe mark. So no violence there. There wasn't
blood on briggs sword. It was just rust. But um,
(38:09):
sally Flood was so determined to prosecute these guys that
he suppressed the test results. Um that that showed that
this was not blood on the sword, that it was
actually russ. He really wanted to get these two. Well yeah,
and here's the deal. I think things really ramped up when, um,
here's what happened before all of this, like uh, deep investigation.
(38:32):
Remember that Morehouse still has his ship that was waylaid.
And so he says, hey, devote, I gotta stay here
for this thing to collect this dough you keep. You
just go on to Genoa you've already testified, and take
our cargo a petroleum because I gotta get this stuff here.
I'm losing money. And so he did so, and so
all of a sudden, Solely Flood was like whoa, whoa, whoa,
(38:53):
he was the he was the number one witness, and
you've just sent this guy away, so now I'm super
suspicious up but Devote came back. He was like, what what,
what's going on? Everybody? So finally, um solid Flood just
couldn't come up with any evidence of foul play, but
(39:13):
apparently did raise enough suspicion that the probate judge said,
you know what, We'll give you guys a reward, but
it's gonna be like a tenth of what you actually deserved.
So they got a reward of sevounds um, which was
jack even in that day. Um, and they they were
(39:37):
allowed to go on their way. The Mary Celeste was
finally released in February. This this all begin in December.
She was released in February to finally carry her cargo
of alcohol to Genoa for Genoa and um, that would
have been that. And what's weird is when you think
about this ghost ship, you just think like, well, obviously
(39:59):
they they took her out of service or commission. I
gotta remember, this is a business venture ship in those days,
just like they are today. It's a business venture and
business people are not exactly the sentimental types usually, so
once she got to Genoa, they got a new crew,
a new captain, and put her right back into service again.
So as you say, it just is back out there
(40:22):
on the market again, um, taking cargo around the world.
And it ran a ground off a reef of Haiti
and five and this was all. This is just kind
of a weird ending to this ship that was super
unlucky or maybe curse who knows. Of course that stuff
isn't real, but um, it ran aground in Haiti as
(40:46):
part of this insurance fraud scheme. So they cooked up
this scheme. Who was the what was the guy's name,
the captain, Captain Gilman Perkins. All right, so here's what
he did. He basically it like any insurance fraud you
could imagine today. Like when I was a kid, there
was this uh you know, I didn't grow up in
(41:07):
a big neighborhood. I grew up on a street with
like seven houses and it was a dirt road until
I was like twelve. With the murder house. Now, oh
what murder house? Was it a murder house or a
haunted house? I can't remember. There was one down the
street from you that you were scared to death. Oh yeah,
that this was that. So that one was torn down,
but a big house was built in its place, but
(41:29):
the old barn from the murdery haunted house was still there,
and my brother and I would used to go exploring,
is what we'll call it now. We basically busted into
this barn. We're just checking things out one day, and
then about two weeks later the thing burned down. And
I remember being a little kid in these insurance detectives,
(41:51):
that's what they're called. They are now insurance whatever investigators
I claims investigating. They came by and questioned Scott and
I were like, what was in that thing? Because this
guy is claiming like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth
of I can't remember what all he said was in there,
and you know, we're a little kids, so we just
told the truth. We're like, none of that stuff was
(42:11):
in there. We stole. That was a bunch of old
foule cabinets and just a bunch of junk. It was
just like a junk barn. So I'm not even I
need to ask my mom. I'm not sure whatever happened
with that, but the guy's probably still in jail because
of eight year old Chuck good. That's funny. You got
some guys sent up the river. The law prevailed. But
that's basically what happened here is this guy purposely wrecks
(42:36):
the ship and says, man, there was a lot of
really valuable stuff on board. I was I was toting
a bunch of bass ale, like the real bass ale
that we still enjoyed today. Uh. And then what else
was there was a bunch of really expensive shoes. Cutlery, yeah,
a bunch of cutlery, fine fish, fine butter. And what
was in there a bunch of garbage. It was so
(42:58):
so this guy purposely runs the ship the ground. It's
insured by five different insurers for a total of thirty
four grand in eighteen seventy two dollars contemporary dollars. And
and they probably would have gotten away with this, uh.
But the captain, Gilman Perkins, went ashore and sold salvage
(43:20):
rights to this cargo, this fine cargo that was supposedly
on the ship to a local um salvage person in Haiti.
And had had he not conn the salvager, then they
may again they may have gotten away with this. But
the salvager went aboard to get this to recover this cargo,
this bass, this um, great butter, great shoes, cutlery, all
(43:43):
this stuff and found, like you said, just pure nastiness. There.
There's a bunch of junk, a l A lot of
the bottles weren't even filled. There were dog collars instead
of shoes. Yeah, what else. The cutlery, I know, the
cutlery was dog collar. These boots were old galoshes. Yeah,
the women's fine shoes. And the butter was the butter
(44:07):
was rank slush, I think is what it was called.
So this con this con man or the salvagers like
I've been conned, and alerts the authorities who get on
the case and finally track it all the way back
to Boston and Captain Perkins, the last captain of the
Mary Celeste. Remember the first captain died, the third or
fourth captain disappeared, and the last captain of the ship
(44:27):
is facing the gallows for bearer Tree, which is the
deliberate destroying of a ship, narrowly avoided being executed for it. Um.
I think the jury came back seven to five and
he got off just narrowly avoided being killed for it.
The the article I read by a guy named Paul Collins.
(44:51):
Um supposed that the jury just couldn't bring themselves to
kill a person for an insurance fraud scheme. And that
was that was it. And now actually a couple of
years after they changed the law so that Bara Tree
was no longer a capital offense. Um, but you could
still get in big trouble for it. But a jury
would be more likely to convict if it didn't mean
(45:11):
your death, you know. So the the Mary Celeste run
aground on this reef met its fate when I guess
the government of Haiti paid for um it to be
dowsting kerosene instead of flame. All right, well let's take
a break and we'll come back and talk a little
bit about how the legend of the Mary Celeste lived
(45:31):
on and then what may have actually happened that faithful
day in November. Alright, So the Mary Celeste, it wasn't
(46:04):
some huge sensational story of the time. Um. Locally it
probably got a little news, but it wasn't like, you know,
it didn't sweep the world. Um. But there was a
story written by one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uh called
j have a cook. Jepson's statement is the worst made
(46:27):
up name I've ever heard in Cornhill Magazine. Also worst
magazine name ever. Yeah, but it was like a huge
magazine at the time. I know it outsold Cornhole Magazine. Right. Uh,
so he write, he writes a story, and what it
is is basically this sensationalistic, uh fake account of the
(46:47):
Mary Celeste. But everyone takes it as real. Yeah, and
he renamed the ship the Marie Celeste. I don't know
if it was a mistake on his part or whatever,
but that also muddies the waters these days too, as
far as Google searches go. Yeah, so everyone thought this
thing was real. Um, all these basically presented a bunch
of things is fact made up a bunch of stuff like, um,
(47:11):
that the tea was still hot and steaming when they
climbed aboard, and the beds were still warm, and uh
it was sailing perfectly and fully sailed, and breakfast was
half eaten, and like there's a cigar still burning. None
of this stuff was true. It was all cooked up
to make the myth just even creepier. But a lot
(47:32):
of people, even today, I still think that stuff is
kind of true. Did he did he make all that up?
Or was it just kind of added to later on.
Well I think I don't know what exactly he made up,
but it basically over the years, everyone just started adding
stuff like that the lifeboat was still there. You know,
none of that stuff was true. Right, So, Um, all
(47:55):
of those those facts I'm making scare quotes as you
can see, Um, they are they they they lend credence
to like really outrageous solutions to this mystery. Right, Like
there's been a lot of well some some aren't exactly
outragious or preposterous, they're just the evidence doesn't support him.
Some are just totally outrageous, right, So you can kind
(48:16):
of divide them into different categories, like the natural um phenomenon.
There could have been a seaquake, um, which I guess happens,
and that usually disturbs the sea above when the sea
floor has a massive earthquake, waterspouts, rogue waves. Remember we
did a really good episode on rogue waves. Um, giant squid,
(48:39):
giant octopus, which fall under the subcategory sea monster. That's
the natural stuff sigment the sea monster. Yeah, Um, all right,
then there's piracy and murder. Uh these just for the
time would make a little more sense. Um, Like Conan
(49:02):
Doyle said, uh, that there was an ex slave bent
on revenge who just wanted to kill white people and
that was in his story, so that that clearly ramped
things up. There was a movie in the thirties with
Bella Legosi that he was one of the crew members
was a murderous sailor with a hook. Oh really, all right,
(49:24):
well they always had hooks. Um. Captain Briggs was overcome
with religious mania, killed everyone in board, including his family,
then killed himself. Uh. Then there was the mutiny theory
that everyone got into this alcohol that you couldn't even drink. No,
he would die like almost immediately. Yeah, and I guess
just got the drunken murderers, the drunken murder rampage. You
(49:48):
know what happens when you drink a little, you just
want to kill right exactly. But do you remember, um,
I guess in our Prohibition episode, it was shown years
on that the US government had poison and the bootleg
hooch supply natured alcohol and people died and went trying
from it. This is this stuff, Yeah, that's how they
put into the supply well. And then there's the just
(50:10):
the kind of mundane pirate pirate try like, hey, this
was where there were North African pirates, and that's probably
what happened, is there were it was just a regular
run of the middle pirate operation. Yeah, but whether it's
like any kind of violence like a um religious fervor
or pirates or something like that. There was not any
(50:32):
sign of struggle. Remember, and the one lifeboat was missing,
so there it would seem that if they got off
the ship, they probably got off willingly rather than um
there having been some sort of violence. Yeah. And then
the also the two brothers. There are a couple of
brothers who were to the crew members Volkert and boy Lorenzen,
(50:56):
and they were suspects for a little while because none
of their personal possessions were found. What apparently there was
no motive whatsoever. And a descendant of them said, you know,
they had lost all their gear and a previous shipwreck,
so just none of that makes any sense. They were
good guys, right, so probably was not murder rightly. Plus
(51:18):
also the idea that the crew had come across another
ship pirated it turned pirate all of a sudden, uh,
And we're led by Briggs the idea that and then
just just took this other ship and set off set
sail to start a new life elsewhere. Um, it doesn't
make much sense on its face, but even if you
dig down just one more degree and remember that they
(51:40):
left their son Arthur behind. She became an orphan on
the day that the day Gratia found the Mary Celeste.
That's even it lends even less credence to to that.
So yeah, again, he was fairly dim weighted they left
them behind. Not a very likable kid. He had a
real temper for no good reason. Didn't like cake. Who
(52:01):
doesn't like cake? So um the murder piracy or lastly,
so remember the Captain Moorehouse dined with Captain Briggs and
his wife the night before they headed out, and then
Captain Moorehouse is the one who found the ship and
claimed salvage rights to it. The idea that it was
(52:23):
fraud and maybe a fraudulent scheme cooked up that one's
really dismissed too, again by the presence of Arthur. Arthur
ruined everything. So you can dismiss murder piracy or fraud. Typically,
what about paranormal Let's go ahead and dismiss that too, Okay,
because I don't think that the bebun To triangle eight
(52:45):
them or that aliens. It's aliens, man, I don't think
that happened. Yeah, that's a big one. Uh So let's
just go ahead and not even talk about that too
much because that's dumb. So that that Frederick sally Floods
obsession with this whole thing at the time contemporarily um
document presented like the documented evidence we have concerning the case.
(53:09):
So it's good that he did this, that he was
gripped by this this paranoia of the suspicion, right, um,
because we do know some facts about the thing. We
know that like, like we said, the ship was found
with just three three sails up and the rest were
either blown down or unfurled. The lifeboat was missing. There
was a rope dangling over the side from the back
(53:31):
of the ship into the water. Nine of the Sevre
one casks were intact, but we're actually empty, and on
closer inspection they were made of red oak, which is
more porous than white oak, which the other seventeen hundred
and one UM barrels were made of and were intact
and still full. So we know these things about the
(53:54):
ship that that that are actually correct, and they've been
put together other to to kind of create this explanation
that again isn't definitive, doesn't prove it once and for all.
What happened that will never happen now, which I love.
But there's there's a pretty good explanation I think that
we both kind of agree is is the likeliest explanation. Yeah,
(54:18):
so those casks that that leaked but did not explode
or anything. Uh, there could have been a smell. There
could have been a sound. There could have been just
some indication that maybe this ship is about to blow
up or we are in danger. Uh, they had taken
on a little water that might have played into it.
(54:38):
But what really everyone thinks played into it is like
we said at the beginning, was that he had his
wife and and toddler aboard, so he was taking no chances,
which would thoroughly explain why they got off of that
boat really quickly at the very first signs that something
could be wrong. So that those nine red oak barrels
(54:59):
that were empty had three hundred gallons of d natured
highly flammable alcohol in them, it would yeah, it would
have smelled, It could have created a fireball explosion. Um,
it could have blown the hatches off it could have
done a lot of things that that would have made
a reasonable person, especially when that's also concerned for the
life of his wife and child, say, the likeliest thing
(55:22):
we should do here, the most reasonable thing we should
do here is get off of the ship. So considering
that there was this alcohol aboard, some of it was missing, um,
and that the lifeboat was gone, and that the log
book showed that they were within sight of land the
last time they had made any kind of entry, supports
(55:43):
the idea that they had all gotten into the lifeboat
willingly because probably that alcohol and then the the the
water that the ship had taken on. Yeah. And apparently
in two thousand and six it was a study at
University College of London where they they tried to produce
what that explosion might have looked like and uh sounded
(56:04):
like and uh they did it with butchane, So I
guess is that about the same thing. I don't know
why they used putane instead of alcohol vapors. I have
no idea why, but they feel like it was pretty definitive. Yeah,
And so basically it caused a big brilliant flame and
made a sound, but because it was this vapor, there
was no it didn't like burn everything up, It didn't
(56:25):
scorch anything, There was no soot, There was no evidence.
So if this would have happened on board this guy's
got his wife and his toddler, that would have been
enough to create a panic. And that that's where my
money is, for sure, for sure. And plus also I
mean like that that the explosion of the exploding alcohol
theory had been around for a while but had been
dismissed because they were like, well, it would have left
(56:47):
some evidence. But this study showed that no, it could
have actually blown blown up and scared the heck out
of these people and gotten him off this boat into
the lifeboat which they would have had um connected to
the ship, the Mary Celeste by this four foot or
four hundred yards. It was a very long rope inch
thick rope called the Halliard, and they had connected the
(57:10):
lifeboat to it. And what they supposed happened was that, um,
they kept a few of the sales down, some of
them still furled uh to let the ship keep going,
but at a slow pace because it was going to
they were going to have to ride behind it for
an indefinite period of time. And that the wind caught
it just right, sped the ship up, snapped the line,
(57:32):
and then within an hour the lifeboat was adrift with
the Mary Celeste out of sight. So was the idea
that they got in the boat attached with the rope
attached to just say, hey, let's like get away from
it and see what happens here. Yes, okay, And then
and then it just starts going. The rope is gone,
and then they're like, well, I can't catch it now, right,
(57:53):
And and they would have been left a drift at
sea um to die, which is what everybody thinks happened. Yeah,
And I guess at the time there would be uh,
unless I got really lucky or unlucky in the rowboat
eventually uh washed ashore somewhere. They would just be no trace, right, Yes,
(58:14):
they just were fish food. Yeah. I mean if they're
out in the Atlantic, especially if they just six miles
away from an island that's in the middle of nowhere.
It's pretty pretty middle of nowhere. So if you're in
a small boat there, you would you it would be
very easy to vanish without a trace forever. I bet that,
like that story is the sad one is what those
(58:35):
final days were like. Yes, that kid. Yeah, heartbreaking. So uh,
that's the story of the Mary Celeste. Good job, good job,
you Chuck. I feel like we kicked the rest off
the sword on this one. If you want to know
more about the Mary Celeste, there is plenty more to
dig into. This is a nice rabbit hole to jump down.
(58:57):
If you want to do that kind of thing. Just
go search Google. Say no, Google, I mean Mary Celeste
and uh started off. You'll have fun and in the
In the meantime, it's time for listener, ma'am, I'm gonna
call this local listener. Hey, guys, my name is Sally
and I am a sophomore at Emrine University. Started listening
(59:19):
to Stuff You Should Know two years ago when I
was on a school exchange in Beijing. But began as
a fun way to bide time and bumper to bumper traffic,
turned into a complete obsession. You're a quick banter made
me feel at home on the other side of the
world while you're engaging in well developed topics. Reignited my
love of learning. Uh. Since leaving e Marie, I frequently
imagine bumping into you, guys and Decatur in Atlanta and
(59:41):
having the opportunity to chat about your journey from college
kids at you g A to potentially the most interesting
and vibrant guys i've heard. Wow, you're vibrant, buddy. Thank you.
I'm fascinated by how you do what you do, and
there's nothing I would love more than be a fly
on the wall of the show. From your creative process
to your tangential tidbits, whatever topic you happen to be covering.
(01:00:03):
I'm fully captivated by every facet. It's nice, huh. I
still have not declared a major. She wrote a lot
more really nice stuff, but um, I had to edit
it for content or for time. I have still not
declared a major, and I'm still essentially a ball of
frenetic energy. But you guys have helped me because you
(01:00:23):
helped me tap into that phonetic energy and productively exercise
my burning and satiall desire to learn to think the
question and you grow now as a young adult and
until the nurses need to pinch my oxygen tank and
physically made me stop. Well a million, thanks that is,
Sally Jinks. Thanks a lot, Sally. That's pretty great. Um,
(01:00:43):
very sweet, Yeah it is. And good luck with the
rest of your schooling. Okay. If you want to get
in touch with us and pay us some high compliments
like Sally Dude, We're always down with that. You can
tweet to us at josh um Clark or s y
s K podcast. You can hit us up on Facebook
dot com slash Stuff you Should Know or slash Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. You can send us all an email to
(01:01:05):
stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
always joined us at our home on the web, but
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
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