This is an "I Heart" podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey everybody, Chuck here, "Introwing" episode 5 of The Stuff You Should Know, gets a weird playlist. This weird stuff everyone, and this is episode of The Mary Celeste, 'cause that was definitely pretty weird. It's definitely a mystery, and I believe the title is "In Full, The Mystery of The Mary Celeste." Enjoy it right now. 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. Try Factor. French. There you go. I don't know, 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 you too, buddy. Happy New Year, Jerry. Thank you. So, in real time, this is our first recording of 2018, I know this always feels a little bit weird when we say things like Happy New Year, and what, February? No, that's what we do. Late January? No, it's like next week. No. We ate up the kitty. Did we get that slim? Yeah, yeah. During our long break, which was wonderful. Yeah, it was so nice, Chuck, I actually get this relaxed. No. Yes. I did, I unwound, my cortisol levels decreased, although the spare tire didn't actually go down with it. It was replaced by frosting. 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 with myself. Clipping orchids. Clipping orchids. Man, my orchids are doing so well right now. It's super cold out, of course, right? Yes. But I've got to keep them outside because they have a bit of an ant in this station, haven't figured out how to do anything about that one yet. I built like a little impromptu cold frame around them, and I have a mini crock pot warming water inside the cold frame, so to the orchids, they're in Ecuador right now during the rainy season. It's like downsizing. Have you seen that yet? No. No. That means nothing to you. No, I have no idea what you're talking about. You have to tell me now. What is it? Oh, it's that new movie. The new Alexander Payne movie with Matt Damon. Does it have to do with orchids? No. It has to do with Ecuador shrinking people down and living in miniature. Oh, that sounds kind of cool. So there'd 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 talk about the woman who created miniature crime scenes for, like, police to study and learn from? No. You should check it out. It was this lady who did exactly what I just said and 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 miniature things, though. Well, you would love this. I'm surprised you haven't seen it then. No, because what was, I think it was in 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 house interiors and it's just like I could have spent all day in there. Yeah. I'll bet. It's amazing. I know. I know. There's something about things that are really small. Things that are really small and things that were once above ground that are now underwater. Have your ears get the little little tiny Tabasco bottle? I just want to hug it. It's about as prized a Tabasco bottle as you can get and I love small stuff like that. Yeah. Oh, I know what you're getting next Christmas. Something tiny. Yeah. Well, something tiny Tabasco. That would be like hug these. Give me a small anything. Okay. Good to know. Good to know. All right. So let's talk. Let's wrap. All right. You know I love me a mystery chuck. I think you do, too. Yeah. This is a good one. And we'll go ship when you, yeah, when you cross mystery with history, 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 Celeste back when I was a young type, probably filmed that like time life unexplained phenomena series. Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure that's right. For those time life books. Yeah. They were great. They were just chock full of just outright lies and mistaken facts and things like that, but they were perfect for like a little 10-year-old imagination, you know. You were tiny. What do you mean? You were tiny 10-year-old. Your imagination was big, though. I was. I wasn't tiny at 10. I was really starting to work on some chubs by then. Oh, yeah. So you know, I was, I was, I'm going on a reversal. I was skinny 10-year-old. Oh, yeah. I was never a skinny kid. Yeah. Well, anyway, it's just imagined little kind of chubby 10-year-old Josh sitting there reading a time life book, learning about the Mary Celeste, this like you said, go ship. And just my hair standing up on end going, this is what a great universe to live in. Yeah. Where there can be go ships. Right. Yeah. And we'll get to, at the end, we will reveal the big, well, no one knows for sure what happened, but no. Well, we'll get to what the best guess is at the very end. Or should we just say that right now? No, no. I think, no, I think that I subscribe to the best guess, as we'll see. All right. So way back machine time, right? But this is our sea-faring version. Well, no, we're going to Old New York. Oh. Okay. So we don't need to get wet yet. No, no. Yeah. We're Daniel Day, Lewis, Rain, Supreme. Oh, no. You're talking about the gangs of New York. Gangs of New York. Thought you talked about the new and Phantom Thread. How do you hear about these movies? That's my job, dude. Oh, yeah. That's right. That's right. I don't think that movie's even out yet, actually. Okay. At least not in Atlanta. You know, we're like a second-tier city. Yeah, that's true, but I suspect not for long because I think Atlanta is actually surpassed LA now as far as, like, film production goes. No. Have you heard that? I could certainly believe it. Yeah. So does that mean we're second-tier and LA is third-tier? Maybe so. All right. 2.5. All right. So are you talking early November 1872? Yes. November 4th 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? No, man. Still, I'm not read that. You should read it. It's pretty good, but one of the things that the book does is it reproduces menus from these dinners that they had when they were planning the expo. And these things were, like, they had chapters, basically. They'd smoke cigarettes in the middle. There'd be a cigarette round because you had to do something to keep all of this food down 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 1872. Yeah, but everything back then was like crown roast and rack of lamb. Yeah. 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. The time life books told me so. That's right. All right. So at this dinner table, we have a few people. We have one captain, David Morehouse, and then his buddy, he was a ship's captain. His buddy, another ship's captain, because, you know, they tend to hang out with one another. Sure. Captain Benjamin Spooner, Briggs, and they're sitting down with Briggs's wife, Sarah. I don't know. Did Morehouse have his wife there? Was he batching? That's not the impression I have. I think that Sarah was there because they were she was shipping out the next day, too. Okay. 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 of salty old sea dogs, but good people from all accounts. Sure. And they. I mean, the fact that these guys were having dinner in New York on November 4th, 1872, totally unremarkable in most senses, right? Yeah. But a month later, it would be incredibly ironic. Oh, yes. And tell them why. Well, because Morehouse's ship is it Degratia? I think so. Okay. D-E-I-G-R-A-T-I-A Degratia was sailing along, and we'll get to the specifics of how this happened in a second. But they came upon his buddy ship, the Mary Celeste. And by all accounts, it was probably like, "Hey, that's Briggs. We need to go over and check out 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 caught him by surprise because he shipped out a full week later bound it for the same city leaving from the same port 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 right so the Mary Celeste very famous ghost ship what a lot of people don't know Chuck is that even before the Mary Celeste became this famous ghost ship it was already considered pretty unlucky actually yeah so 1860 was when not even named the Mary Celeste it was called the Amazon at the time was born in Nova Scotia and I believe the very first voyage what you would call a maiden voyage was to haul some some timber to London across the Atlantic yeah that's what she was pretty routine yeah didn't go very well no it didn't no her first captain was a guy named Robert McLellan yeah and he apparently it had a cold and when they shipped out he took such a term for the worst that they had to turn around and go back home and he died two days after they they got back I can't imagine 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 now yeah so this this but think about this like first of all sailors are fairly superstitious bunch right so a maiden voyage anything that's like hinky or weird or bad about a maiden voyage automatically cursed ship yeah 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 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 it 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 of Maine pressed on as you do and did reach London dumped off the 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 it picks a lot right exactly Amazon yeah and the the captain of the other ship even stubbed his toe on the way down afterward it was terrible insults and so again this is a business venture the owners said whatever that was somebody else ship our ships fine we're gonna keep doing this London to their New York to London timber route they also did some West Indies trade for a while and everything was fairly normal for a while and then a freak storm caught the ship and I'm not like I'm not a see fairer by any means whatsoever yes so I don't know if this actually is like a an inordinate amount of things to happen to one ship but it does seem like a lot and just you know less than 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 1867 she's run a ground in a storm and is so bad off that the owners say we're abandoning her yeah that must be pretty bad so they've literally left the ship there to decompose or I guess you would call it rot if you're wooden sure I guess would decompose is right or is that just right I think rot is more slang okay you know it sounds gross or two like cool right and at that point the ship was bought by a dude named Alexander McBean also from Nova Scotia also a great name and then he I mean the ship is changing hands basically he sold that shipwreck and I guess I was just a thing at the time you would buy a shipwreck maybe sell it and 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 Richard Haynes so he paid about $1,750 for it which is about $32,000 according to our favorite inflation calculator which is West egg that's correct it's just got a good name and plus it's easy to use and it's been around forever yeah and they're they're I mean I think it goes up to 2016 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 okay and Haynes had fixed it up a little bit but Winchester really put a lot of money into it lengthened it to over a hundred feet added a deck basically the show would have been called Flipptus Brighantine he was starring vanilla ice you like that one huh I see that show have you seen it like five minutes I'll tell you I'll tell you this this proves that I relaxed this vacation you ready yeah I got hooked on an animal planet show called insane pools oh 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 I was like I have to go to bed now or else I'm gonna be up to like five a.m. watching this marathon about a pool renovation show that has nothing to do with animals yeah yeah it was it was bizarre how just it just got it's hooks in me yeah that happens from time to time with me too and you know it scares me about those pools though is most of them are just amazing and you have like grottoes and waterfalls and all that cool stuff but some people opt for those death tubes where you can like swim through a thing to another thing oh I haven't seen one with that yet yeah they're like hey we want to we want to be able to swim through a tube into another part of the pool and potentially you know get stuck and die yeah that would be really awful I don't think that it happened 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 going to you know you're pool would just have a sheen of butter floating at the top that's who kind of rots in the sunlight I worked at a pool like that once that's groting it was not butter but there was a sheen I don't know what it was I'm sure it was sunblock yeah I guess though has to be what else is it gonna be I don't know body thought it could be there's probably a little body folks in there but is that cause of rainbow sheen oh a rainbow sheen no I don't know what that 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 that might have been it okay all right so Winchester and by the way Winchester is just the major investor there was a very notable other investor and what was his name oh oh you're asking me yeah it's been a couple weeks hasn't it sorry about that you're just staring up in the space I was weird his his name was Benjamin Spooner Briggs right who 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 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 the sailing game yeah and and buying a hardware store together a new Bedford mass and instead Briggs said no you know what this is too good of a deal yeah 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 it's one of those sliding doors things like should have gone into hardware yeah yeah rather than sailing into history so by the way that is when the ship was officially renamed the Mary Celeste from the Amazon is when it was re-registered I guess and I looked it up I was kind curious because there is a Marie Celeste which is a fairly famous World War II or I'm sorry it's a 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 in a French name and it's just a weird mix up yeah to not have been Marie and be Mary Celeste so they think it might have been either the Mary Sellers or another Marie Celeste huh it's 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 it says okay do you mean vanilla ice right vanilla ice flipped this pool so Briggs like you said brought along his wife who 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 little Arthur out of school no he was already pretty dim-witted so oh was he but they didn't want to interrupt his schoolings they said Arthur you stay here with some relatives and they took Sophia Matilda with them and this was a huge decision I don't know if this is unusual or not but it
Whatever Briggs said I'm bringing my wife and daughter with me on this this ship on on the maiden voyage and everyone Brother I know they're like oh good good. This will be fun Well, well not only have to work really hard for weeks at C. We'll also have to entertain your two-year-old whenever she wants Right and we get curse right exactly so That decision though Probably had some effects on on the voyage overall it definitely had an effect on who Briggs chose for the crew Yeah, he you know he had his wife his art. He was known as a Christian an Upstanding person apparently didn't drink much if at all 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 well regarded. I'm assuming his wife was equally well regarded And he because his family was on the boat with them He went to some some trouble to make sure that the seven crew members that he picked were of upright character themselves That they weren't any shade balls because you don't want any shady sailors out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with your wife and child No, you don't want that so that is to say that the crew of the Mary Celeste on her maiden voyage with Benjamin Briggs his wife and daughter We're all pretty pretty top-notch dudes. Yeah, I'll accounts. Yeah, for sure. So They set sail date what they were carrying was About 1700 actually 1700 and one to be exact barrels of what's called denatured alcohol. This is not Ram, this is not something you're gonna drink. It is undrinkable. It is like fuel basically industrial fuel And they finally sit sail on November 7th, 1872 bound for Italy bound for Genoa and I think we should probably take a break right here. Let's do it. All right. We'll be right back about the haunted ghost ship Oh All right, Chuck So we're out at sea Right, okay, so there's 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? Yeah, they made it a long way It wasn't they did it wasn't until the last five days before they are suspected to have disappeared that the Mary Celeste Voyage turned a little odd or became a little unusual. Yeah, and they figured out that from looking at the logbooks that within that last five days 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 basically tell exactly where you are in the world 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. Okay, so based on his calculations with his chronometer He thought that they were they should have seen land the Azores by then This island chain in the Atlantic kind of toward Portugal. Yeah, it's like just like dead west of southern Portugal Yeah, I think the eastern most island of the Azores is like 400 miles west of Portugal something like that quite Anyway, I can imagine too, but it's I think it's also basically in the middle of nowhere in the in the mid Atlantic Yeah, it's one of those things or if you Do the Google map you will see these tiny specks and nothing but blue right? It starts zooming out to see where the heck you are, right. It's like the Hawaii of the Atlantic, I think okay So he thought that he should have seen the Azores by then and he hadn't so I think he started to get a little nervous because they changed course They went northward which he suspected would have taken him toward the Azores and he may have been either looking to kind of Re-Orient himself. Yeah, or just looking for Haven Who knows but they they know that that they did change course and that he wasn't where they he thought he was Yeah, it 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 gonna be worried about that exactly man I can't imagine having two-year-old on a ship what a nightmare It's going to cruise you can experience it a million times over oh yeah because the cruise ship modern a cruise ship is the same as a 19th century Sailing vessel. It's not you're right. There's nothing to do No, that's true. Although they did have a Melodian which I had to look that up as well. It's like an in accordion Yeah, I don't see why they even call it something different right an accordion with keys all right, so on Well, oh as a port as opposed to what the little buttons. Oh Or maybe it's the accordion with the buttons right on the keys. It's one of the two. Okay, you know what I'm talking It's like a weirdo Yankovic type instrument. Oh well We should get Aaron Cooper to write us because he will surely do and they yes, he I'm sure he So they would have had that aboard which would have been all the all the pleasure you could imagine Yeah, like one wooden doll and a Cordian is really kind of keep it to your old occupied and a communal Salt Lake All right, so The next morning they wake up in the Mary Celeste Actually sees land which I can imagine if you were a Seaman out there in the 19th century and you're a little worried. There is no more welcome sight than seeing land Mm-hmm, you know after seeing nothing but water for for weeks and weeks So they see land the logbook says they saw land. They're about six miles from Santa de Maria Which is the Easter most of the Azores and? This was sort of the last stop before you hit Portugal Right, I can imagine there like there was just he just was so relieved I'm so glad to land sure so the reason we know this is not because anybody on the Mary Celeste told anybody At least not verbally they they found the logbook 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 logbook And the log slate was where they noted that 8 a.m. On November 25th the Mary Celeste Sighted land and by their calculations were six miles off of Santa Maria, right? That's right So that was that was November 25th. Yes, they I guess they just had a nice Thanksgiving Yeah, maybe with their Salt Lake Now they had food as we will see So the remember the Degacia Degacia Degatia Degatia I think that's it that last one. So the other ship Those being sailed by his buddy kept the more house remember Seaman John Johnson of that ship said hey capi There's a there's another ship out here and it's about 400 miles further east from where that log had placed that ship The Mary Celeste not only that it was a good 10 or 11 days later Right, so this is all spelling trouble The there are only three sails set the rest of the sails were it either blown away weren't raised this none of this boats well and kept him more house I don't think you probably recognize from that distance that it was the Mary Celeste yet, right? But he sent his first mate Oliver Divvale and Second mate John Wright and another dude and said get in that boat row over there and see what the heck's going on Right, so these guys Devote and Wright were the ones who actually got on deck and and Investigated the Mary Celeste and I read this one article that I think just put it so perfectly like Just ropes creaking Like a door kind of banging open and closed and 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 Devote 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 seemingly okay or to see Dead bodies and each of
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 you're sitting up at the dinner table or sitting up in bed. Or is it a Walt Disney ride? That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Or are they laying there with purple robes and Nike's heaven's gates down? 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 creepier would be just finding a ghost ship. Okay, I agree, I think. Because there's the absence of something that's supposed to be there. And that's, I think, what would make it so creepy? Yeah. And I think the thing that really makes it creepy, as we will see, is that it wasn't like, hey, this ship has clearly been pirated. Right. And people, there's blood on the walls, and people have been killed. There was just nobody there. No signs of distress. The sextant, the chronometer, chronometer. I know, it's tougher than you'd think the same. The chronometer, the nav book, they were gone, but that logbook was still there. So basically, like there was food, there was drinking water, there were everyone's clothes were there, that little girl's two, the Salt Lake was there, her two toys were there. There was the impression from her sleeping on the bed in the captain's cabin. That's super creepy. It is. Yeah. There was, there was not, there were no signs of violence. There was no signs of like, panic, no 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. Yeah. By itself. Like a broken compass. Right. Broken compass. Like some of them, some of the sales have been blown down onto the deck itself. There was some water in there. Yeah. And hold. Right. And then one of the things they found, which was a pretty big clue, was an improvised sounding rod, which was basically just a stick with markings on it to show feet, right? Yeah. And they, you would lower that into the hold to see where the watermark hit. It's just to figure out how deep water is in a hold. So they clearly knew that there was water in the hold because they built the sounding rod. And it had been found on the deck by the, the two guys from the day Gratia. 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. Sure. But apparently on a ship that size, that's like no big whoop. One of the other things that ties him with the water too is they had two pumps aboard. Yeah. One of the pumps was found disassembled. So there was basically like these guys came on to the ship and there are all these these weird out of context things that were the result of decisions made by people who were now vanished. Yeah. And they had to try to figure this out. But one of the first things that came into their head, eventually, I think when they went back to the day Gratia and told more how so it was going on, in pretty short order, somebody said, well, we should probably take the 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 would have been pretty foolish to just continue it 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 sailable. 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 it's not like they had been axed into and or like what would you pillage or 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 he salvage the ship, but the cargo. Exactly. And what it come out to like between 45 and 80 grand and today dollars is what he could have potentially gotten for salvaging this thing. Yeah, because at the time, the insurers owed a reward to whoever salvaged the ship like this. And it could run up to 100% of the value of the cargo or the ship. Mutual of Nova Scotia. Big good dollars, which I mean, man, you want to see a board stuffed with neckbeards? Yeah. Go to that bank. That's good. All right. So they like you said, decided to do the smart thing and the right thing, because and it was his friend. Besides the fact that I mean, anyone would have tried to salvage the ship, but it was also his pal. 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. Our the end. So they they take this boat. They actually took there was three guys. One of them was Oliver DeVoe, who was the first maid of the day, Gratia. He was in charge of sailing this. Yeah, very important note. Yeah, that he he sailed with just two other guys. This the Mary Celeste, they pumped out the the water from the hole. They they fixed the sails and the night of the day that they found it, they set sail for Gibraltar in just three dudes sailed this thing successfully a thousand kilometers from where it was found on to Gibraltar. Not bad. 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 by the name of Frederick Sally Flood. Man, that could not be more British. I know. And he basically said, hmm, this is a he say there was nobody there at all. There's no explanation for any of this. And you want the equivalent of twenty seventeen dollars of forty five to eighty thousand dollars. Thank you. West egg. I think that was I think that was in their dollars. 1872 dollars. No, it says contemporary estimate. Then 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? Didn't that always mean now? I don't know. I got it. I could have gotten it wrong. It's entirely possible. All right. Well, it's it's 2018 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 Sally Flood said, this seems really hinky 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. He gave his testimony. It was very clear. Nothing weird about it. He was very honest because by all accounts, he had nothing to hide. And but Sally Flood's just was suspicious from the beginning. Yeah. 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 a state you're in charge of taking through probate. Yeah. And then suddenly there's this murder investigation without any evidence of anything. Right. Just based on the prosecutor's suspicions, right? Well, and they're going to disappear without a trace. Well, yeah, that's a big one to you. I forgot that part. But you know, 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 the Mary Celeste. They found marks on this the railing which Sally Flood was like 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 ax marks were actually from the construction of the of the ship. That wasn't ax marks. So no violence there. There wasn't blood on Briggs's sword. It was just rust. But Sally Flood was so determined to prosecute these guys that he suppressed the test results that that showed that this was not blood on the sword that it was actually rust. He really wanted to get these two. Well, yeah. And here's the deal. I think things really ramped up when here's what happened before all of this like deep investigation. Remember, the morehouse still has his ship that was way laid. And so he says, hey, Devo, I got to 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 of petroleum because I got to get this stuff here. I'm losing money. And so he did so. And so all of a sudden Sally Flood was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. He was the he was the number one witness. And you've just sent this guy away. So now I'm super suspicious. Yeah. But Devo came back. He's like, what was going on? Everybody was the big deal. Here's some salami. So finally, Sally Flood just couldn't come up with any evidence of foul play. But apparently did raise enough suspicion that the the probate judge said, you know what, we'll give you guys a reward. But it's going to be like a tenth of what you actually deserve. Yeah. So they got a reward of 1700 pounds.
which was Jack even in that day and they were allowed to go on their way. The Mary Celeste was finally released in February. This all began in December. She was released in February to finally carry her cargo of alcohol to Genoa, and that would have been that. What's weird is when you think about this ghost ship, you just think, obviously, they took her out of service or commission. You've got to remember this is a business venture, a ship in those days, just like they are today. It's a business venture, and business people are not exactly the sentimental types usually. Once you got to Genoa, they got a new crew, a new captain, put her right back into service again. As you say, it just is back out there on the market again, taking cargo around the world. It ran a ground off a reef of Haiti in 1885. This was just kind of a weird ending to this ship that was super unlucky, or maybe cursed who knows, of course, that stuff isn't real, but it ran a ground in Haiti as part of this insurance fraud scheme. They cooked up this scheme. Who was the, what was the guy's name, the captain? Captain Gilman Perkins. Here's what he did. He basically, it's like any insurance fraud you could imagine today. When I was a kid, there was this, I didn't grow up in a big neighborhood, I grew up on a street with like seven houses and it was a dirt road until I was like 12 with the murder house. 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. This was that. That one was torn down, but a big house was built in its place, but the old barn from the murdery haunted house was still there. My brother and I would used to go exploring is what we'll call it now. We basically busted into this barn and 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. So what they're called? Yeah, they are now insurance, whatever investigators claims investigate. Yeah, 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 kid. So we just told the truth. We're like, yeah, none of that stuff was in there. We stole that. There's a bunch of old file cabinets and just a bunch of junk. It was just like a junk barn. And so I'm not even, I need to ask my mom. I'm not sure whatever happened with that. But I think that's probably still in jail because of eight year old Chuck. Good. That's funny. He got some guy sent up the river. So the law prevailed. But that's basically what happened here is this guy purposely wrecks the ship and says, man, there was a lot of really valuable stuff on board. I was, I was totalling a bunch of bass ale, like the real bass ale that we still enjoy today. Sure. And then what else was there? 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, so this guy purposely runs the ship of ground. It's ensured by five different insurers for a total of 34 grand in a lot of dough in 1872 dollars, contemporary dollars. And they probably would have gotten away with this. But the captain, Gilman Perkins, went ashore and sold salvage rights to the cargo, this fine cargo that was supposedly on the ship to a local salvage person in Haiti. And had he not conned 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 great butter, great shoes, cutlery, all this stuff. And found like you said, just pure nastiness there. Yes, there's a bunch of junk ale. A lot of the bottles weren't even filled. There were dog collars instead of shoes. Yeah. What else the cutlery? Oh, no, the color was dog collars. These boots were old galoshes. Yeah, the women's fine shoes. And the butter was the butter was ranked 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 is facing the galos for baritory, which is deliberate destroying of a ship. That's a great crime. Narrowly avoided being executed for it. I think the jury came back seven to five and he got off just narrowly avoided being killed for it. Yeah. I don't know why he got off. The article I read by a guy named Paul Collins, supposed that the jury just couldn't bring themselves to kill a person for an insurance fraud scheme. And that was that was actually a couple of years after they changed the law so that baritory was no longer a capital offense. But you could still get in big trouble for it. But a jury would be more likely to convict if it didn't mean your death, you know. Right. So the the the Mary Celeste run aground on this reef met its fate when I guess the government of Haiti paid for it to be dousing kerosene instead of flying. 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 on and then what may have actually happened that faithful day in November. All right. So the Mary Celeste, it wasn't some huge sensational story of the time. Locally it probably got a little news, but it wasn't like, you know, it didn't sweep the world. But there was a story written by one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called it J have a cook Jebson statement in 1884. It was the worst made up name I've ever heard in Cornhill magazine. It also worse magazine name ever. Yeah, but it was like a huge magazine at the time. Oh yeah. I know it outsold Cornhole magazine. Right. So he writes a story and what it is is basically this sensationalistic fake account of the 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 right? But that also muddies the waters these days too as far as Google searches go. Yeah. So everyone thought this thing was real. All these basically presented a bunch of things as fact made up a bunch of stuff like the tea was still hot and steaming when they climbed aboard and the beds were still warm. And 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 of people even today 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. Right. None of that stuff was true. Right. So all of those facts on making scare quotes as you can see, they are they they've they've lend credence to like really outrageous solutions to this mystery, right? Yeah. They've been a lot well some some aren't exactly outrageous or preposterous. They're just the evidence doesn't support them. Some are just totally outrageous, right? Yeah. So you can kind of divide them in a different category. It's like the natural phenomenon. There could have been a seaquake, which I guess happens. And that usually disturbs the sea above when the sea floor has a massive earthquake. Water spouts, rogue waves. Remember, we did a really good episode on rogue waves. I remember that one. Giant squid, giant octopus, which fall under the subcategory sea monster. That's the natural stuff. So you mean the sea monster? Yeah. All right. Then there's piracy and murder. These just for the time would make a little more sense. Like Conan Doyle said that there was an ex-slave bent on revenge who just wanted to kill white people. And that was in his story. So that clearly ramped things up. There was a movie in the 30s with Bella Legosi that he was one of the crew members was a murderous sailor with a hook. Oh, really? All right. Well, they always had hooks. Captain Briggs was overcome with religious mania.
killed everyone in board, including his family, then killed himself, then there was the mutiny theory that everyone got into this alcohol that you couldn't even drink. No, you would die almost immediately. Yeah, I guess just got the drunken murder, the drunken murder rampage, you know what happens when you drink a little, you just want to kill. Right, exactly. Would you remember, I guess in our prohibition episode, it was shown years on that the US government had poisoned the bootleg hooch supply with the nature of alcohol and people died and went from it? This is this stuff. Yeah. That's what they put into the supply. Well, and then there's just the kind of mundane pirate, piratery like, hey, this was where there were North African pirates and that's probably what happened is they were, it was just a regular run of the middle pirate operation. Yeah, but whether it's like any kind of violence, like a religious fervor, or pirates, or something like that, there was not any 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 they're having been some sort of violence. Yeah. And then also the two brothers, there are a couple of brothers who are to the crew members, Volkert and boy, Lorenzen and they were suspects for a little while because none of their personal possessions were found, but apparently there was no mode of 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, right? Probably not. So the idea that the crew had come across another ship, pirated it, turned pirate all of a sudden and were led by Briggs. The idea that and then just took this other ship and set off, set sail to start a new life elsewhere. It doesn't make much sense on its face, but even if you dig down just one more degree and remember that they left their son Arthur behind here came in orphan on the day that the Degratia found the Mary's the last, that's even, it lends even less credence to that. So yeah, again, he was fairly dim-witted, they left them behind, not a very likable kid. He had a real temper for no good reason, didn't like cake, who doesn't like cake. So the murder piracy or lastly, so remember the Captain Morehouse, dined with Captain Briggs and his wife the night before they headed out. And then Captain Morehouse was the one who found the ship and claimed salvage rights to it. The idea that it was fraud and maybe a fraudulent scheme cooked up, that one's really dismissed to, again, by the presence of Arthur. Right. Arthur ruined everything. So you can dismiss murder piracy or fraud, typically. Yes. What about paranormal? Well, let's go ahead and dismiss that too. Okay. I think that the rebuter try and go ate them or that aliens, it's aliens, man, I don't think that happened. Yeah, that's a big one. So let's just go ahead and not even talk about that too much because that's dumb. So that, that Frederick Sully floods obsession with this whole thing at the time, contemporarily. Doc, presented like the documented evidence we have concerning the case. So it's good that he did this, that he was gripped by this paranoia, the suspicion, right? Yeah. Because we do know some facts about the thing. We know that, 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 of the ship into the water. Nine of the 1701 casks were intact, but were actually empty, and on closer inspection, they were made of red oak, which is more porous than white oak, which the other 1701 barrels were made of and were intact and still full. So we know these things about the ship that are actually correct, and they've been put together to kind of create this explanation. But 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 a pretty good explanation. I think that we both kind of agree is the likeliest explanation. Yeah. So those casks that leaked, but did not explode or anything, 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. They had taken on a little water that might have played into it, but what really everyone thinks played into it is, like we said at the beginning, we'll see he had his wife 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. Right. So those nine red oak barrels that were empty had 300 gallons of denatured, highly flammable alcohol in them. Yeah. That would have smelled. Yeah. It would have smelled. It could have created a fireball explosion. It could have blown the hatches off. It could have done a lot of things that would have made a reasonable person, especially one that's also concerned for the life of his wife and child, say, the likeliest thing we should do here, the most reasonable thing we should do here is get off of this ship. So considering that there was this alcohol aboard, some of it was missing and that the lifeboat was gone and that the logbook showed that they were within sight of land at the last time they had made any kind of entry, supports the idea that they had all gotten into the lifeboat willingly because probably that alcohol and then the water that the ship had taken on. Apparently in 2006, it was a study at University College of London where they tried to reproduce what that explosion might have looked like and sounded like and they did it with butane. So I guess is that about the same thing? I don't know why they use butane 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 burn everything up, it didn't scorch anything, there was no soot, there was no evidence. So if this would have happened on board, this guy's got his wife in his toddler, that would have been enough to create a panic and that's where my money is for sure. For sure. And plus also, I mean like the explosion of the exploding alcohol theory had been around for a while but it had been dismissed because they were like, well, it would have left 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 them off this boat into the lifeboat which they would have had connected to this ship, the Mary Celeste, by this 400 foot or 400 yards. It was a very long rope, inch thick rope, called a hellyard and they had connected the lifeboat to it and what they supposed to happen was that they kept a few of the sails down, some of them still furled 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 and then within an hour the lifeboat was adrift with the Mary Celeste out of sight. So is 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. Okay and then it just starts going, the rope is gone and then they're like, well, can't catch it now. Right. And they would have been left adrift at sea to die which is what everybody thinks happened. Yeah and I guess at the time there would be, unless it got really lucky or unlucky and the rowboat eventually watched the shore somewhere, they would just be no trace, right? Yes. 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 is pretty, pretty middle of nowhere. So if you're in a small boat, you would, you would, it'd be very easy to vanish without a trace forever. Man. I bet that, like that story is the sad one is what those final days were like. Yes. Kid, yeah, heartbreaking. So 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. Yeah. 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 if you want to do that kind of thing. Just go search Google, say no, Google, I mean Mary Celeste and start off. You'll have fun. That's right. Time. It's time for listener, man. I'm going to call this local listener. Hey guys, my name is Sally and I am a sophomore at Emory University. Started listening to the stuff you should know two years ago when I was on a school exchange in Beijing. What began as a fun way to buy time and bumper to bumper traffic turned into a complete obsession.
Your quick banter made me feel at home on the other side of the world, while you're engaging in well-developed topics. Re-ignited my love of learning. Since leaving Emory, I frequently imagine bumping into you guys and Decatur and Atlanta and having the opportunity to chat about your journey from college kids at UGA to potentially the most interesting and vibrant guys I've heard. Wow. Your 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 in the wall of the show. From your creative process to your tangential tidbits, whatever topic you happen to be covering, I'm fully captivated by every facet. It's nice, huh? Yeah. I still have not declared a major. She wrote a lot more really nice stuff, but 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 helped me tap into that frenetic energy and productively exercise my burning and tasteful desire to learn to think to question and to grow. Now as a young adult, and until the nurses need to pinch my oxygen tank and physically made me stop. Well done. A million thanks. That is Sally Jinks. Thanks a lot, Sally. That's pretty great. Very sweet. Yeah, it is. And good luck with the rest of your schooling. Kate, if you want to get in touch with us and pay us some high compliments like Sally did, 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.com/stuff you should know, or slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us all an email to
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