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He sniffed the air and twisted the wheel slightly.
Belowdecks in the captain’s quarters, Sarah Elizabeth Briggs, Benjamin’s wife, was tending to their two-year-old daughter, Sophia Matilda. After feeding her and placing her in a small wood-framed playpen in the room, Sarah played a quiet tune on her melodeon until the child fell asleep.
This was not Mrs. Briggs’s first trip with her husband — but it would be her last.
The winds were not favorable.
Mary Celeste was a mile off Staten Island when Briggs gave the order.
“Heave to,” he shouted to the sailors. “We’ll anchor and await a change in winds.”
Once his ship was stationary, Briggs went belowdecks to check his cargo. Other than a few crates full of personal items going to a New York art student studying in Italy, his hold was filled with a single cargo: barrels of alcohol bound for Genoa, 1,700 in total, being shipped by Meisser, Ackerman & Company, of 48 Beaver Street, New York City.
Befitting his Yankee upbringing, Briggs was a cautious man. And although the barrels were tightly plugged and appeared intact, he worried about the possibility of fumes. More than one ship had exploded and burned when carrying such dangerous goods. With both his wife and baby daughter aboard, he wanted to be sure he averted an accident before it happened.
Satisfied that the cargo was safe, he climbed from the hold and made his way to his cabin. Sarah sat in front of her foot-operated sewing machine, hemming a baby dress. To one side, in a folding playpen made of lathe-turned walnut, Sophia was standing quietly. When Briggs entered, she cocked her head and stared quizzically.
“Da,” she squealed.
Captain Briggs made his way over to the playpen and rubbed his daughter’s hair. Then he turned to Sarah and smiled.
“The winds are against us,” he said. “We’ll wait here until they turn.”
“Any idea how long?” Sarah asked easily.
“The barometer shows changes,” Briggs admitted, “but there is really no way to know for sure.”
Early on the morning of Thursday, November 7, the winds began to cooperate.
A pilot guided Mary Celeste from her anchorage into deeper water. Once clear of the shallows and in the Atlantic Ocean, a pilot boat came alongside to retrieve the pilot and take him back to New York City. As was the custom, when the pilot boarded his boat to shore, he carried letters from the ship to post.
The last communications from the captain and crew of Mary Celeste.
Benjamin Briggs stood behind the wheel and steered his ship east. There was an inky blackness to the sea that day, combined with an unyielding roughness. It was as if the water consisted of shards of black marble like that used to build a mausoleum. Mary Celeste was on a roller-coaster ride. In front of the bow, the waves rose in a building flood of righteous indignation; then, as the bow broke over the top, the ship headed down with such force that the captain could feel his stomach rising in protest. It was as if they were on a rocking chair that was hitting the wall.
Two thousand feet down was the bottom. Two thousand miles ahead were the Azores.
Briggs had faced harsh seas before and was not concerned. His ship was stout and strong, his crew handpicked and checked. There was First Mate Albert Richardson, twenty-eight years old, with a light complexion and brown hair. Richardson had served in the Maine Volunteers during the Civil War, so Briggs knew he was used to hardship. His pay was $50 a month. Second Mate Andrew Gilling, a twenty-five-year-old from New York City, was fair of skin and hair, a seasoned sailor from Denmark. His wages were $35 a month. The cook and steward, Edward William Head, was twenty-three and newly married. His pay was $40 a month.
And the deckhands and ordinary sailors received $30 monthly.
Brothers Boz and Volkert Lorenzen, ages twenty-five and twenty-nine, respectively. Thirty-five-year-old Arian Martens. Gottlieb Goodschaad, the youngest at twenty-three. All were from Germany — all were experienced. All of these men, along with Gilling, listed their address as 19 Thames Street, New York. The Seaman’s Hall.
Edward Head carefully made his way across the deck to Captain Briggs.
“Captain,” he shouted over the wind, “can I get you anything?”
“I’ll eat when the watch changes,” Briggs said, “in an hour and a half.”
“Coffee?” Head asked as he turned to leave.
“Hot tea with molasses,” Briggs said, “to settle my stomach.”
“I’ll bring it out shortly,” Head agreed.
At that instant, at the docks in New York City, another ship was being loaded.
Dei Gratia was a British brigantine of 295 tons that hailed from Nova Scotia. Her captain, David Reed Moorhouse, was supervising the loading of oil from the fields of Pe
“We are scheduled to leave on the fifteenth,” Moorhouse said. “Do you have any recommendations for the rest of the crew?”
“I talked to Augustus Anderson and John Johnson about coming aboard as ordinary seamen. I’ve worked with them before.”
“What do you think about John Wright as the second mate?”
“He’s a good hand,” Deveau agreed.
“I’ll make him an offer, then,” Moorhouse said.
“The wind is turning,” Deveau noted.
“Then we should leave on time,” Moorhouse said easily.
Most great civilizations have one thing in common: seapower. The Vikings, the Spanish, the British — all could trace their power and prestige to the fact that they ruled the oceans. And in the days before corporations, a captain of a ship at sea was a powerful man. Along with being the representative of the ship owners and his country of flag, he was tasked with a fiduciary duty to the owners of the cargo that his ship carried. But his duties were insured.
The hull of Mary Celeste was insured by four companies: Maine Lloyds, in the amount of $6,000; Orient Mutual Company, for $4,000; Mercantile Mutual Company, $2,500; and New England Mutual Insurance Company, with the smallest coverage at $1,500. The total coverage was $14,000, not an insignificant sum in 1872. The cargo was insured separately through Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company for $3,400. The companies were careful about the ships they insured — they insisted that they were fit to sail and properly crewed. Mary Celeste fit all the criteria.
Halfway to the Azores, Captain Briggs was guiding Mary Celeste over the Rehoboth Seamount, an underwater plateau along the sixty-degree-longitude line. Turning the helm over to Richardson, he opened a polished cherrywood box, then carefully removed a sextant from a soft deerskin bag. Shooting a fix of the horizon, he determined their location.
Mary Celeste was on the proper course.
“Same heading,” he said to Richardson. “I’ll be below if you need me.”
“Very good, sir,” Richardson said.
The hatch leading below was halfway open, folded back on itself, and the ladder leading down was firmly secured to the bulkhead. Briggs had learned through experience to check such things, as early in his career he had descended a loose ladder and tumbled into the hold, badly wrenching his ankle. Nowadays he left nothing to chance.
Briggs was happy with his crew so far. The Lorenzen brothers spoke halting English with a thick German accent, but they seemed to understand his directions and complied quickly. Not only that, the brothers were hard workers. Every time Briggs looked around, they were tending to sails, swabbing the deck, or finding some other task to occupy their time. Good sailors.
Martens and Goodschaad seemed quiet and studious compared to the Lorenzens, but they worked hard and followed directions. Richardson was skilled enough to captain his own ship, and Gilling would be there soon. Only Edward Head worried Briggs. While he performed his duties with skill, he seemed sad.