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The Mystery of the Mary Celeste · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland.
0:18
Speaker 1: The Triumvirate, the hat Trick, the Trio, the triage trifecta French.
0:24
Speaker 1: There you go? Is that Latin M? I don't know
0:27
Speaker 1: if I just know it as a gambling term. Well,
0:30
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it's stuff you should know. Hey, Happy
0:33
Speaker 1: New Year, Happy New Year to YouTube buddy, Happy new Year, Jerry.
0:40
Speaker 1: Uh so in real time. This is our first recording.
0:44
Speaker 1: Uh I know this always feels a little bit weird
0:46
Speaker 1: when we say things like happy New Year, and what
0:48
Speaker 1: February late January? No, it's like next week we ate
0:54
Speaker 1: up the kiddie. Did we get that slim? Oh? Yeah,
0:57
Speaker 1: during our long break which was wonderful. Yeah, it was
1:01
Speaker 1: so nice, Chuck, I actually get this relaxed. Yes it was.
1:08
Speaker 1: I did I unwound. I My cortisol levels decreased, although
1:13
Speaker 1: the spare tire didn't actually go down with it. It
1:17
Speaker 1: was replaced by frosting. Um my webcam begs to differ
1:22
Speaker 1: because I was peeking in on you. The whole time. Well, okay,
1:25
Speaker 1: I did a lot of work, but I did relax
1:27
Speaker 1: in between. I saw you pacing wondering what to do
1:31
Speaker 1: with myself, clipping orkids, clipping orchids. Man, my orchids are
1:35
Speaker 1: doing so well right now. It's super cold out of course,
1:38
Speaker 1: right but I've got to keep them outside because they
1:41
Speaker 1: have a bit of an ant advest station. Haven't figured
1:43
Speaker 1: out how to do anything about that one yet, but
1:46
Speaker 1: I built like a little impromptu cold frame around him,
1:50
Speaker 1: and I have a mini croc pot warming water inside
1:54
Speaker 1: the cold frame. So to the orchids. They're in Ecuador
1:57
Speaker 1: right now during the rainy season. It's like ounsizing. Have
2:00
Speaker 1: you seen that yet? No? That means nothing to you? Then, No,
2:05
Speaker 1: it's I have no idea what you're talking about. What
2:08
Speaker 1: you have to tell me now? What is it? Well,
2:09
Speaker 1: it's that new movie, the new Alexander Paine movie with
2:13
Speaker 1: Matt Damon. Does that have to do with or kids?
2:16
Speaker 1: Has to do with Ecuador? Shrinking people down and living
2:19
Speaker 1: in miniature Oh that sounds kind of cool. So they'll
2:23
Speaker 1: be like a miniature crock pot. That's what got me
2:24
Speaker 1: on that tangent. Did you ever see that documentary. I'm
2:28
Speaker 1: sorry everybody who wants to stay on track, But just
2:30
Speaker 1: one more thing. Did you ever see that documentary Chuck
2:32
Speaker 1: about the the woman who created miniature crime scenes for
2:38
Speaker 1: UM like police to study and learn from. No, you
2:44
Speaker 1: should check it out. It was it was this lady
2:47
Speaker 1: who did exactly what I just said. They made a
2:48
Speaker 1: documentary about her and how much these things have actually
2:51
Speaker 1: helped teach techniques and how radical a change it was,
2:55
Speaker 1: and presumption of guilt and that kind of thing. You
2:58
Speaker 1: know how much I love many of your things, though,
3:01
Speaker 1: well you would love this. I'm surprised you haven't seen it. Then, No,
3:04
Speaker 1: because what was I think it was in UM Chicago,
3:08
Speaker 1: the museum in Chicago and the downstairs I want to
3:12
Speaker 1: say basement, but whatever, the lowest floor is. They have
3:15
Speaker 1: the works of the woman who created all the miniature
3:18
Speaker 1: UM house interiors and it's just like I could have
3:23
Speaker 1: spent all day in there. Yeah, I'll bet so, You're
3:26
Speaker 1: amazing you would. I know some there is something about
3:29
Speaker 1: things that are really small, things that are really small,
3:31
Speaker 1: and things that were once above ground that are now underwater.
3:35
Speaker 1: Have you you ever get the little uh, a little
3:38
Speaker 1: tiny Tabasco bottle. M I just want to hug it.
3:42
Speaker 1: It's about as prized the Tabasco bottle as you can get. Man,
3:45
Speaker 1: I love small stuff like that. Yeah, well I know
3:48
Speaker 1: what you're getting next Christmas. Some tiny yeah, well some
3:52
Speaker 1: tiny tabascosy. I'm gonna be like, hug these, give me
3:55
Speaker 1: a small anything. Okay, good to know, good to know. Alright,
4:00
Speaker 1: so let's talk. Let's wrap all right. You know I
4:04
Speaker 1: love me a mystery chuck. I think you do too. Yeah,
4:08
Speaker 1: this is a good one. The ghost ship. When you yeah,
4:11
Speaker 1: when you cross mystery with history, it's it just blows
4:15
Speaker 1: up the spot, The whole spot blows up. And that's
4:18
Speaker 1: what this one is like. I remember learning about the
4:20
Speaker 1: Mary Celestack when I was a young Tyke probably filmed that,
4:23
Speaker 1: like Time Life Unexplained Phenomena series. I'm pretty sure that's right. Yeah.
4:31
Speaker 1: They were great. They were just chuck full of just
4:35
Speaker 1: outright lies and and mistaken facts and things like that,
4:39
Speaker 1: but they were perfect for like a little ten year
4:41
Speaker 1: old imagination. You know, you were tiny. What do you
4:45
Speaker 1: mean you were tiny? Ten year old? Your imagination was
4:47
Speaker 1: big though I wasn't tiny. Ten. I was really starting
4:52
Speaker 1: to work on some chubs by then, Yeah I was
4:55
Speaker 1: I'm going in reversal, or I was skinny ten year old?
4:58
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was never a skinny kid. Yeah. Well anyway,
5:04
Speaker 1: it's just division little kind of chuvy ten year old
5:07
Speaker 1: Josh sitting there reading a time life book, learning about
5:11
Speaker 1: the Mary Celeste This, like you said, ghost ship and
5:14
Speaker 1: just my hair standing up on and going, this is
5:17
Speaker 1: what a great universe to live in, Yeah, where there
5:21
Speaker 1: can be ghost ships? Right, yeah, and we'll get to uh,
5:25
Speaker 1: at the end, we will reveal the big well, no
5:29
Speaker 1: one knows for sure what happened, but no, um, we'll
5:32
Speaker 1: get to what the best guess is at the very end.
5:35
Speaker 1: Or should we just say that right now? No, No,
5:37
Speaker 1: it be weird. I think no, I think that, but
5:40
Speaker 1: I subscribe to the best guess as we'll see. All right,
5:43
Speaker 1: so way back machine time, right, but this is our
5:46
Speaker 1: our seafaring version. Well, no, we're going to old New York. Okay,
5:52
Speaker 1: so we don't need to get wet yet. No, not yet.
5:55
Speaker 1: We're Daniel day Lewis reigned Supreme. Have you seen that yet? Oh? No,
5:59
Speaker 1: you talking about the gangs of New York, New York,
6:02
Speaker 1: about the new and phantom thread where do you hear
6:06
Speaker 1: about these movies? That's my job, dude. Oh yeah, that's right.
6:11
Speaker 1: Um yea that I don't think that movie is even
6:13
Speaker 1: out yet, actually, at least not in Atlanta. You know,
6:15
Speaker 1: we're like a second second tier city. Yeah, that's true,
6:19
Speaker 1: but I suspect not for long because I think Atlanta
6:22
Speaker 1: is actually surpassed l A. Now as far as like
6:25
Speaker 1: film production goes. Have you heard that? I could certainly
6:30
Speaker 1: believe it. Yeah. So does that mean we're second tier
6:34
Speaker 1: in l A's third tier? Maybe so A two point five. Alright,
6:39
Speaker 1: So are you talking early November eight seventy two, Yes,
6:43
Speaker 1: November four, to be exact, on Monday? Are you talking
6:46
Speaker 1: about the Astor House in New York City, New York? Yeah? Man,
6:49
Speaker 1: And this is at a time where like, have you
6:51
Speaker 1: ever read Devil in the White City? Now, man, I
6:53
Speaker 1: still have not read that. You should read. It's pretty good.
6:56
Speaker 1: But one of the things that the book does is
6:58
Speaker 1: it reproduces end us from these dinners that they had
7:02
Speaker 1: when they were planning the expo, and these things were
7:04
Speaker 1: like they had chapters. Basically, they'd smoke cigarettes in the middle.
7:09
Speaker 1: There be a cigarette round because you had to do
7:12
Speaker 1: something to keep all of this food down and and
7:15
Speaker 1: help the process of digestion. It was crazy how much
7:18
Speaker 1: they would eat. So I can imagine the food was
7:21
Speaker 1: pretty good at the Astor House in eighteen seventy two. Yeah,
7:24
Speaker 1: but everything back then was like crown roast and rack
7:28
Speaker 1: of lamb and it was just like huge trays of beef,
7:32
Speaker 1: right live pig that you beat to death at your
7:35
Speaker 1: table and then start eating. God, they did it. Believe
7:39
Speaker 1: me that time Life books told me so. Alright, So
7:42
Speaker 1: at this dinner table, we have um a few people.
7:45
Speaker 1: We have one captain David Moorehouse, and then his buddy
7:49
Speaker 1: he was a ship's captain. His buddy another ship's captain,
7:52
Speaker 1: because you know, they didn't hang out with one another,
7:54
Speaker 1: um captain Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs. Uh. And they're sitting
7:59
Speaker 1: down with Briggs his wife Sarah. And I don't know
8:02
Speaker 1: did did Moore House have his wife there or was
8:04
Speaker 1: he That's not the impression I have. I think that
8:08
Speaker 1: Sarah was there because they were. She was shipping out
8:10
Speaker 1: the next day too. I think he was batching it.
8:14
Speaker 1: In other words, but they were good buddies, both captains
8:17
Speaker 1: both set to set sail out of New York for
8:22
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean, and I guess they were just talking shop. Yeah,
8:27
Speaker 1: I mean, I think they both grew up in Nova Scotia,
8:29
Speaker 1: so they may have known each other. There a couple
8:32
Speaker 1: of sault the old sea dogs, but good people from
8:35
Speaker 1: from from all accounts, and they I mean the fact
8:39
Speaker 1: that these guys were having dinner in New York on
8:42
Speaker 1: November four, eight two totally unremarkable in most senses, right,
8:47
Speaker 1: but a month later it would be incredibly ironic. And
8:53
Speaker 1: tell him why, Well, because more houses ship the h
8:57
Speaker 1: is it Digratia, I think, So okay, we'll call it
9:01
Speaker 1: that d E I g r A t I A
9:04
Speaker 1: de gracia. Uh, we'll sailing along and and we'll get
9:08
Speaker 1: to the specifics of how this happened a second. But
9:11
Speaker 1: they came upon his buddy ship, the Mary Celeste, and
9:15
Speaker 1: by all accounts was probably like, hey, that's uh, that's Briggs.
9:20
Speaker 1: We need to go over and check out how how
9:22
Speaker 1: Spoon's Briggs is doing right, And they weren't doing well
9:26
Speaker 1: because nobody aboard the ship was aboard the ship. No,
9:30
Speaker 1: I mean, just seeing the ship would have called him
9:32
Speaker 1: by surprise, because he shipped out a full week later
9:36
Speaker 1: bound for the same city, leaving from the same ports,
9:38
Speaker 1: so they should have never caught up to them. And
9:41
Speaker 1: then the fact that, yeah, when they boarded it and
9:43
Speaker 1: there was no one aboard, a mystery that endures to
9:46
Speaker 1: this day was born that day. That is correct, all right,
9:50
Speaker 1: So the Mary Celeste very famous ghost ship. But what
9:54
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know, Chuck, is that even
9:56
Speaker 1: before the Mary Celeste became this famous ghost ship, it
10:00
Speaker 1: was already considered pretty unlucky. Actually. Yeah, so eighteen sixty
10:05
Speaker 1: was when uh not even named the mary Celestia, it
10:09
Speaker 1: was called the Amazon at the time. Was born in
10:12
Speaker 1: Nova Scotia, and I believe the very first voyage, what
10:16
Speaker 1: you would call a maiden voyage, was a wholesome some
10:19
Speaker 1: timber to London across the Atlantic. Yeah, that's what she
10:23
Speaker 1: pretty pretty routine. Yeah, didn't go very well, no, it
10:27
Speaker 1: didn't know. Her first captain was a guy named Robert McLellan,
10:33
Speaker 1: and he apparently had had a cold, and when they
10:36
Speaker 1: shipped out, he took such a turn for the worst
10:39
Speaker 1: that they had to turn around and go back home,
10:41
Speaker 1: and he died two days after they got back. In
10:44
Speaker 1: the moment, can you imagine back in those days, if
10:46
Speaker 1: you get a cold, you're like, well, I got about
10:48
Speaker 1: a one in ten chance of dying, right, maybe even
10:50
Speaker 1: worse than that. Right, Yeah, so this this, but think
10:54
Speaker 1: about this, like, first of all, the sailors are fairly
10:57
Speaker 1: um superstitious, bunt, right, So a maiden voyage, anything that's
11:03
Speaker 1: like hinky or weird or bad about a maiden voyage
11:07
Speaker 1: automatically cursed ship. So the captain dying on a maiden
11:11
Speaker 1: voyage that can't even be completed, that's a cursed ship
11:14
Speaker 1: right out of the gate, I would say so. But
11:17
Speaker 1: this is also a business venture, so it's not like
11:19
Speaker 1: the owners gave up on the thing. They said, well,
11:22
Speaker 1: just get in another captain, you superstitious dogs, and get
11:25
Speaker 1: back out there. And that's what they did, yes, And
11:27
Speaker 1: captain number two was John Nutting Parker, great name is
11:32
Speaker 1: a good name, and he also sailed to London. And
11:36
Speaker 1: when they left, they actually encountered some trouble right off
11:39
Speaker 1: the bat. They hit some fishing equipment off the coast
11:42
Speaker 1: of Maine, pressed on as you do, and did reach London,
11:48
Speaker 1: um dumped off their cargo, set sail for home. And
11:51
Speaker 1: as they set sail for home, they actually sunk another
11:54
Speaker 1: boat in the English Channel. Yes, cursed ship, cursed ship. Yeah,
12:00
Speaker 1: and that other boat was probably pick a lot right exactly. Yeah,
12:04
Speaker 1: And the the captain of the other ship even stubbed
12:07
Speaker 1: his toe on the way down afterward. It was terrible.
12:11
Speaker 1: So again, this is a business venture. The owners said, whatever,
12:16
Speaker 1: that was somebody else's ship, our ships. Fine, we're gonna
12:18
Speaker 1: keep doing this London to um or New York to
12:22
Speaker 1: London timber route. They also did some West Indies trade
12:25
Speaker 1: for a while, and everything was fairly normal for a while. Um,
12:30
Speaker 1: and then a freak storm caught the ship. And I'm not, like,
12:33
Speaker 1: I'm not a seafarer by any means whatsoever. So I
12:38
Speaker 1: don't know if this actually is like an inordinate amount
12:41
Speaker 1: of things to happen to one ship, but it does
12:45
Speaker 1: seem like a lot, and just you know, less than
12:47
Speaker 1: a decade for a single ship. So she the first
12:51
Speaker 1: captain dies, second captain sinks another ship. They run into
12:54
Speaker 1: some fishing tackle, and then in October of eighteen sixty seven,
12:58
Speaker 1: she's running ground in a storm and it's so bad
13:01
Speaker 1: off that the owner's sake, we're abandoning here. Yeah, that
13:05
Speaker 1: must be pretty bad. So they literally left the ship
13:07
Speaker 1: there to decompose or I guess you would call it
13:11
Speaker 1: rott if you're Wooden. Sure, I guess would decomposes, right
13:15
Speaker 1: or is that just rot? I think rod is more slang, okay,
13:19
Speaker 1: and it sounds grosser to like cool, right. Uh. And
13:24
Speaker 1: at that point, the ship was bought by dude name
13:27
Speaker 1: Alexander McBean, also from Nova Scotia, also a great name,
13:31
Speaker 1: and then he I mean, the ship is changing hands. Basically,
13:34
Speaker 1: he sold that shipwreck. And I guess that was just
13:37
Speaker 1: a thing at the time. You would by a shipwreck,
13:41
Speaker 1: maybe sell it in turn a quick profit, probably not
13:45
Speaker 1: a ton of money. But he sold that shipwreck to
13:48
Speaker 1: a dude who then sold it to another dude name
13:52
Speaker 1: Richard Haynes. So he paid about fifty bucks for it,
13:57
Speaker 1: which is about according to our favorite inflation calculator, which
14:03
Speaker 1: is west Egg. That's correct. It's just got a good
14:07
Speaker 1: name and plus plus it's easy to use, and it's
14:11
Speaker 1: been around forever. Yeah, and they're there. I mean I
14:14
Speaker 1: think it goes up to now, which is pretty good.
14:16
Speaker 1: That's pretty pretty good. They're always just like a year behind,
14:19
Speaker 1: which I can respect. That's fine. They need the data,
14:23
Speaker 1: so Haynes went through bankruptcy and that boat was seized,
14:26
Speaker 1: and then that was sold to a group led by
14:29
Speaker 1: a man named James Winchester, and uh, Haynes had fixed
14:33
Speaker 1: it up a little bit, but Winchester really put a
14:35
Speaker 1: lot of money into it, lengthened it to over a
14:39
Speaker 1: hundred feet, added a deck. Basically the show would have
14:43
Speaker 1: been called Flip This Brigantine starring Vanilla Ice. You like
14:49
Speaker 1: that one, Huh? I've seen that show? Have you've seen it?
14:54
Speaker 1: For like five minutes? I'll tell you. I'll tell you this.
14:57
Speaker 1: This proves that I relaxed this vacation. You're ready? Yeah?
15:01
Speaker 1: I got hooked on an Animal Planet show called Insane Pools?
15:06
Speaker 1: Have you heard of it? I do watch one of
15:09
Speaker 1: those pool shows, but I don't think it's that one.
15:11
Speaker 1: It's another one. I was like, I have to go
15:14
Speaker 1: to bed now or else I'm gonna be up to
15:16
Speaker 1: like five am watching this marathon about a pool renovation
15:20
Speaker 1: show that has nothing to do with animals. It was.
15:24
Speaker 1: It was bizarre, how just it just got its hooks
15:27
Speaker 1: in me? So yeah that that happens from time to
15:29
Speaker 1: time with me too. And you know what scares me
15:31
Speaker 1: about those pools though, is most of them are just
15:33
Speaker 1: amazing and you have like grottos and waterfalls and all
15:36
Speaker 1: that cool stuff. But some people opt for those death
15:39
Speaker 1: tubes where you can like swim through a thing to
15:43
Speaker 1: another thing. Oh. I haven't seen one with that yet. Yeah,
15:46
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, we wanna we want to be able
15:48
Speaker 1: to swim through a tube, but to another part of
15:50
Speaker 1: the pool and potentially, you know, get stuck and die.
15:54
Speaker 1: I see it. That would be really awful. I don't
15:57
Speaker 1: think that ever happens. So they need to just leave
15:59
Speaker 1: a stick of butter at the mouth of that thing,
16:01
Speaker 1: so you can grease yourself up real good as you're
16:03
Speaker 1: going through you know, your pool, and just have a
16:08
Speaker 1: sheen of butter floating at the top of it kind
16:11
Speaker 1: of rots in the sunlight. I worked at a pool
16:13
Speaker 1: like that once that It was not butter, but there
16:16
Speaker 1: was a sheen. I don't know what it was. I'm
16:18
Speaker 1: sure it was some block, Yeah, I guess, so it
16:22
Speaker 1: has to be. What else is it gonna be? I
16:23
Speaker 1: don't know. It could be there's probably a little body
16:28
Speaker 1: fixed in there. But does that cause a rainbow sheen? Oh?
16:32
Speaker 1: A rainbow she No, I don't know. What was There
16:35
Speaker 1: should not be a rainbow sheen on your pool unless
16:38
Speaker 1: you had like pool like swimmers covered in gasoline going
16:42
Speaker 1: into your pool. That would explain it all that might
16:44
Speaker 1: have been it. Alright, So Winchester and by the way,
16:48
Speaker 1: Winchester is just the major investor. Uh, there was a
16:51
Speaker 1: very notable other investor. And what was his name? Oh,
16:56
Speaker 1: you're asking me, it's been a couple of weeks. As
16:59
Speaker 1: a sorry about that. You're just staring up in the space.
17:02
Speaker 1: That was weird. His name was Benjamin Spooner Briggs. That
17:07
Speaker 1: you will notice is the dude from Dinner. Yes, so
17:10
Speaker 1: he's He's not only the captain of the Mary Celeste,
17:12
Speaker 1: he was a two fifth stake and investor in it.
17:15
Speaker 1: And um, what's notable is that at the time he
17:19
Speaker 1: invested in the Mary Celeste, he and his brother were
17:23
Speaker 1: actually considering getting out of the um the sailing game
17:28
Speaker 1: and and buying a hardware store together in New Bedford,
17:31
Speaker 1: mass And instead Briggs said, now you know what, this
17:35
Speaker 1: is too good of a deal. This is this is
17:38
Speaker 1: a great ship. I'm gonna pour my savings into a
17:40
Speaker 1: two fifth stake, and not only that, I'll be the
17:42
Speaker 1: captain of it, and not only that for its maiden voyage.
17:46
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring my wife and daughter along with me. Yeah.
17:49
Speaker 1: It's one of those sliding doors things like should have
17:52
Speaker 1: gone into hardware, Yeah yeah, rather than sailing into history.
17:57
Speaker 1: Um So, by the way, that when the ship was
18:00
Speaker 1: officially renamed the Mary Celeste from the Amazon is when
18:04
Speaker 1: it was reregistered, I guess, and I looked it up.
18:07
Speaker 1: I was kind of curious because there is a Marie Celeste,
18:10
Speaker 1: which was a fairly famous World War two or I'm sorry, uh,
18:14
Speaker 1: civil worship, and I was just curious where the name
18:17
Speaker 1: came from. And nobody really knows, but they said there
18:21
Speaker 1: is a theory that it was an error by the
18:22
Speaker 1: painter because it's an English and a French name and
18:25
Speaker 1: it's just a weird mix up to not have been
18:28
Speaker 1: Marie and be Mary Celeste. So they think it might
18:30
Speaker 1: have been either the Mary Sellers or another Marie Celeste.
18:35
Speaker 1: So either way, who knows. Well even today though, like
18:39
Speaker 1: still there's like some confusion when you if you google
18:42
Speaker 1: Mary Celeste, Google says, do you mean Marie Celeste? And
18:46
Speaker 1: I say no, Google, I mean Mary Celeste says, do
18:49
Speaker 1: you mean Vanilla Ice? Vanilla Ice flipped his pool. Uh
18:55
Speaker 1: so Briggs, like you said, brought along his wife, who
18:59
Speaker 1: was at dinner, and then their two year old daughter,
19:00
Speaker 1: Sophia Matilda. They left a little Arthur behind because he
19:05
Speaker 1: was seven and he was in school, and they said,
19:08
Speaker 1: we don't want to take a little Arthur out of school. No,
19:11
Speaker 1: he was already pretty dim witted, so I no, I
19:15
Speaker 1: don't know, but they didn't want to interrupt his schooling.
19:20
Speaker 1: So they said, Arthur, you stay here with some relatives,
19:22
Speaker 1: and they took Sophia Matilda with them. Um, and this
19:25
Speaker 1: was a huge decision. I don't know if this is
19:27
Speaker 1: unusual or not, but whatever, Briggs said, I'm bringing my
19:31
Speaker 1: wife and daughter with me on this this ship on
19:35
Speaker 1: on the Maiden voyage. And everyone I know they're like, oh,
19:39
Speaker 1: good good, this will be fun. Um, well, we'll not
19:42
Speaker 1: only have to work really hard for weeks that see,
19:44
Speaker 1: we'll also have to entertain your two year old whenever
19:47
Speaker 1: she wants right, and we can't right exactly. So um.
19:52
Speaker 1: That decision, though probably had some effects on on the
19:58
Speaker 1: voyage overall, definitely had an effect on who Briggs chose
20:03
Speaker 1: for the crew. He you know, he had his wife,
20:06
Speaker 1: his Ardor. He was known as a Christian, an upstanding person,
20:10
Speaker 1: apparently didn't drink much, if at all. Um he was
20:13
Speaker 1: known as fair, just level headed, and just an overall
20:17
Speaker 1: honorable person, not just at sea, but in life you
20:21
Speaker 1: know as well back on land. So he was pretty
20:23
Speaker 1: well regarded. I'm assuming his wife was equally well regarded. Um,
20:28
Speaker 1: and he because his family was on the boat with him,
20:32
Speaker 1: he went to some some trouble to make sure that
20:36
Speaker 1: the seven crew members that he picked were of upright
20:39
Speaker 1: character themselves, that there weren't any shade balls, because you
20:42
Speaker 1: don't want any shady sailors out in the middle of
20:45
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean with your wife and child. You don't
20:49
Speaker 1: want that. So that that is to say that the
20:52
Speaker 1: crew of the Mary Celeste on her maiden voyage with
20:55
Speaker 1: Benjamin Briggs, his wife and daughter were all pretty pretty
20:59
Speaker 1: top notch to act, Yeah, for sure. So Um, they
21:04
Speaker 1: set sail. They what they were carrying was about seventeen
21:08
Speaker 1: hundred actually sevent one to be exact, barrels of what's
21:12
Speaker 1: called de natured alcohol. This is not rum, This is
21:16
Speaker 1: not something you're gonna drink. It is undrinkable. It is
21:20
Speaker 1: like fuel. Basically, industrial fuel, and they finally sit sail
21:23
Speaker 1: in November seven, eighteen seventy two, bound for Italy, bound
21:27
Speaker 1: for Genoa. And UM, I think we should probably take
21:31
Speaker 1: a break right here. Let's do it, all right, We'll
21:33
Speaker 1: be right back about the haunted ghost shoot alright, chuck, um,
22:03
Speaker 1: So right, okay, So there's there were there was an investigation,
22:09
Speaker 1: as you can imagine. We'll talk about that more later.
22:11
Speaker 1: But this investigation determined that probably although they definitely ran
22:16
Speaker 1: into some storms and heavy weather here there, but most
22:19
Speaker 1: of the voyage of the Mary Celeste was fairly unremarkable overall, right.
22:26
Speaker 1: It wasn't they did. It wasn't until the last five
22:29
Speaker 1: days before they are suspected to have disappeared, that the
22:34
Speaker 1: Mary Celestes voyage turned a little odd or became a
22:38
Speaker 1: little unusual. And they figured out that, um, from looking
22:42
Speaker 1: at the log books that within that last five days, UM,
22:47
Speaker 1: Captain Briggs decided that he really should have seen land
22:51
Speaker 1: by by this time. And if you're a captain, in
22:55
Speaker 1: your chronometer, which is basically like from what I was
22:59
Speaker 1: I was reading about this, it's like a portable time
23:02
Speaker 1: zone that you can use for celestial navigation to to
23:08
Speaker 1: basically tell exactly where you are in the world. Um,
23:11
Speaker 1: it's a very valuable tool to have it. See, but
23:14
Speaker 1: if your chronometer is is faulty, you're not necessarily going
23:19
Speaker 1: to be where you think you are. So, based on
23:22
Speaker 1: his calculations with his chronometer, he thought that they were
23:27
Speaker 1: they should have seen land the Azores by then. Um,
23:30
Speaker 1: this island chain in in the Atlantic, kind of towards Portugal.
23:34
Speaker 1: It's like just like dead west of southern Portugal. Yeah,
23:38
Speaker 1: I think the easternmost island of the Azores is like
23:41
Speaker 1: four hundred miles west of Portugal something like that. Anyway,
23:45
Speaker 1: I can imagine too, but it's I think it's also
23:48
Speaker 1: basically in the middle of nowhere in the in the
23:51
Speaker 1: mid Atlantic. It's one of those things. Or if you
23:55
Speaker 1: do the Google map, you will see these tiny specs
23:58
Speaker 1: and nothing but blue. Right, he's gotta start zooming out
24:01
Speaker 1: to see where the heck you are, Right, it's like
24:03
Speaker 1: the Hawaii of the Atlantic, I think. So he thought
24:08
Speaker 1: that he should have seen the Azores by then, and
24:11
Speaker 1: he hadn't, so I think he started to get a
24:13
Speaker 1: little nervous because they changed course. They went northward, which
24:17
Speaker 1: he suspected would have taken him towards the azoris and
24:20
Speaker 1: he may have been either looking to kind of um
24:23
Speaker 1: uh re re orient himself or just looking for haven.
24:30
Speaker 1: Who knows, but they know that that they did change
24:34
Speaker 1: course and that he wasn't where that he thought he was. Yeah,
24:38
Speaker 1: and I also get the idea, which will job with
24:40
Speaker 1: one of the theories is that he may have been
24:43
Speaker 1: a little nervous having his two year old and his
24:45
Speaker 1: wife aboard in general. Yeah, for sure, you know, I mean, yeah,
24:49
Speaker 1: he's not just it's not just his safety now or
24:51
Speaker 1: even the safety of the crew. It's his little kid
24:53
Speaker 1: and his wife's safety. Of course, he's going to be
24:55
Speaker 1: worried about that exactly. Man. I can't imagine having two
24:58
Speaker 1: year old on a ship. What a nightmare. Good God,
25:03
Speaker 1: it's going to cruise. You can experience it a million
25:05
Speaker 1: times over. Yeah, because the cruise ship modernday cruise ship
25:09
Speaker 1: is the same as a nineteenth century sailing vessel. It's
25:15
Speaker 1: not like there's nothing to do. No, that's true. Although
25:20
Speaker 1: they did have a melodeon, which I had to look
25:23
Speaker 1: that up as well. It's like an accordion. Yeah, I
25:25
Speaker 1: don't see why they call it something different, right, an
25:28
Speaker 1: accordion with keys, all right, so on, well, oh, a
25:33
Speaker 1: supported as opposed to what the little buttons? Oh, or
25:38
Speaker 1: maybe it's the accordion with the buttons. It's one of
25:42
Speaker 1: the two. Okay, you know what I'm talking. It's like
25:44
Speaker 1: a weird Al Yankovic type instrument. Oh well, we should
25:47
Speaker 1: get Aaron Cooper to write us, because he will surely do.
25:50
Speaker 1: And they yes, I'm sure he. Um. So they would
25:54
Speaker 1: have had that aboard, which would have been all the
25:56
Speaker 1: all the pleasure you could imagine. Yeah, like one wouldn't
25:59
Speaker 1: all all in an accordion is really kind of keep
26:02
Speaker 1: it to year old occupied and the communal salt lick
26:06
Speaker 1: in the middle of the above deck. Alright. So uh
26:11
Speaker 1: the next morning, Um, they wake up in the Mary
26:14
Speaker 1: Celeste actually sees land, which I can imagine if you
26:18
Speaker 1: are a seaman out there in the nineteenth century and
26:22
Speaker 1: you're a little worried. There's no more welcome sight than
26:25
Speaker 1: seeing land, you know, after seeing nothing but water for
26:29
Speaker 1: for weeks and weeks. So they see land. The log
26:33
Speaker 1: book says they saw land there about six miles from
26:37
Speaker 1: Santa Marilla, which is the easternmost of the Azores. And um,
26:42
Speaker 1: this was sort of the last stop before you hit Portugal. Right.
26:46
Speaker 1: I can't imagine they're like, there's just he just was
26:49
Speaker 1: so relieved. So the reason we know this is not
26:53
Speaker 1: because anybody on the Mary Celeste told anybody, at least
26:56
Speaker 1: not verbally. They they found the law book and the
27:01
Speaker 1: log slate, which is kind of like you're you're just
27:03
Speaker 1: keeping track of stuff on the slate before you actually
27:06
Speaker 1: transcribe it into the log book. And the log slate
27:09
Speaker 1: was where they noted that eight am on November twenty five,
27:12
Speaker 1: the Maryslist sighted land and by their calculations were six
27:17
Speaker 1: miles off of Santa Maria Rights. So that was November. Yes,
27:23
Speaker 1: they I guess they just had a nice Thanksgiving. Yeah
27:27
Speaker 1: maybe with their salt lick. Now they had food, as
27:31
Speaker 1: we will see. Uh So the remember the de Garcia
27:36
Speaker 1: de Gatia de Garratia. I think that's it, that last one.
27:42
Speaker 1: So the other ship that was being sailed by his buddy,
27:46
Speaker 1: Captain Morehouse, remember uh Seamen John Johnson of that ship
27:51
Speaker 1: said hey, cappy, uh, there's a there's another ship out here,
27:56
Speaker 1: and it's about four miles further east from where that
28:00
Speaker 1: log had placed. That ship. The Mary Celeste. Not only
28:04
Speaker 1: that it was a good ten or eleven days later, right,
28:08
Speaker 1: So this is all spelling trouble. Uh that there are
28:12
Speaker 1: only three sails set the rest of the sales or
28:15
Speaker 1: had either blown away weren't raised. None of this bodes well.
28:18
Speaker 1: And Captain Moorehouse, I don't think he probably recognized from
28:21
Speaker 1: that distance that it was the Mary Celeste yet, but
28:25
Speaker 1: he sent his first mate Oliver de Vell and second
28:28
Speaker 1: mate John Right and another dude and said get in
28:32
Speaker 1: that boat row there and see what the heck is
28:34
Speaker 1: going on? Right, So these guys to Vote and Right
28:37
Speaker 1: were the ones who actually got on deck and and
28:41
Speaker 1: investigated the Mary Celeste. And I read this one article
28:44
Speaker 1: that I think just put it so perfectly, like just
28:46
Speaker 1: ropes creaking, a door kind of banging open and closed
28:52
Speaker 1: in in the wind, and just utter silence. As far
28:55
Speaker 1: as humans are concerned, nobody on board the ship would
28:59
Speaker 1: be so creepy. I think that that Oliver de Vaux
29:03
Speaker 1: and John Wright probably experienced one of the creepiest experiences
29:09
Speaker 1: that any human ever has in the history of people.
29:12
Speaker 1: So is it creepier for Josh Clark Seaman Josh to
29:18
Speaker 1: get upon the ship and find nobody aboard, but everything
29:24
Speaker 1: seemingly okay, or to see dead bodies in each of
29:29
Speaker 1: the bunks it would be okay. So it depends on
29:33
Speaker 1: the position of the dead bodies. Are they just kind
29:35
Speaker 1: of like crumpled and tossed, like they've been thrown down
29:39
Speaker 1: onto the bed or something like that, Like are the
29:43
Speaker 1: sitting up at at at the dinner table or sitting
29:46
Speaker 1: up in bed or is it a Walt Disney ride,
29:49
Speaker 1: That's That's what I'm saying, yeah, Or are they laying
29:52
Speaker 1: there with purple robes and nikes Heaven's Gate style. Yeah,
29:56
Speaker 1: that would be something as well. So to me, creepier
30:00
Speaker 1: is I think no one there. I think it would
30:02
Speaker 1: be more horrific to find the bodies, of course, but
30:06
Speaker 1: creepier would be um, just finding a ghost chip, I agree.
30:10
Speaker 1: I think because there's the absence of something that's supposed
30:13
Speaker 1: to be there, and that's I think what what would
30:15
Speaker 1: make it so creepy? Well, yeah, and I think the
30:18
Speaker 1: thing that really makes it creepy, as we will see,
30:20
Speaker 1: is that that was it wasn't like, hey, this ship
30:24
Speaker 1: has clearly been pirate id and people there's blood on
30:27
Speaker 1: the walls, and people have been killed. There was just nobody.
30:30
Speaker 1: There no signs of distressed. Um, the the sex stan,
30:36
Speaker 1: the chronomin chronometer. I know it's tougher than you think
30:39
Speaker 1: to say the chronometer. Uh, the nav book they were gone,
30:43
Speaker 1: but that log book was still there. So basically like
30:46
Speaker 1: there was there was food, there was drinking water, There
30:49
Speaker 1: were everyone's clothes were there. That little girls to the
30:52
Speaker 1: salt look was there? Her two toys were there. Shoot,
30:55
Speaker 1: there was the impression from her sleeping on the bed
30:58
Speaker 1: in the captain's cabins for creepy it is, Um there
31:03
Speaker 1: was there was not. There were no signs of violence.
31:06
Speaker 1: There was no signs of like, um, of panic, no
31:10
Speaker 1: kind of disorder. I mean, some things were out of order,
31:13
Speaker 1: but it was the kind of stuff that you could
31:14
Speaker 1: chalk up to a ship drifting at sea for a
31:17
Speaker 1: week or so by itself, right, broken compass, like some
31:23
Speaker 1: of the some of the sails have been blown down
31:26
Speaker 1: onto the deck itself. Um, there was some water in
31:30
Speaker 1: there and right. And then one of the things they found,
31:34
Speaker 1: which was a pretty big clue was um improvised sounding rod,
31:39
Speaker 1: which is basically just a stick with markings on it
31:41
Speaker 1: to show feet right. Um. And they that you would
31:45
Speaker 1: lower that into the hold to see what where the
31:49
Speaker 1: water mark. H It's just to figure out how deep
31:51
Speaker 1: water is in a hold. So they clearly knew that
31:54
Speaker 1: there was water in the hold because they built the
31:56
Speaker 1: sounding rod and it had been found on the deck
31:58
Speaker 1: by the two guys from the day Grattia. Yeah, and
32:01
Speaker 1: it was only about three and a half feet of
32:03
Speaker 1: water by all accounts, and that's not that sounds like
32:06
Speaker 1: a lot to a guy like me who's not an
32:08
Speaker 1: experienced sailor, but apparently on a ship that size, that's
32:11
Speaker 1: like no big whoop. One of the other things that
32:13
Speaker 1: ties in with the water too, is they had two
32:15
Speaker 1: pumps aboard. One of the pumps was found disassembled, so
32:19
Speaker 1: there was basically like these guys came onto the ship
32:22
Speaker 1: and there are all these these weird, out of context
32:28
Speaker 1: things that were the result of decisions made by people
32:31
Speaker 1: who who are now vanished, and they had to to
32:35
Speaker 1: try to figure this out. But one of the first
32:37
Speaker 1: things that came into their head eventually, I think, when
32:40
Speaker 1: they went back to the day Grattia and told more
32:42
Speaker 1: House what was going on. Um in pretty short order,
32:46
Speaker 1: somebody said, well, we should probably take this ship to
32:51
Speaker 1: Gibraltar with us. How about that, Because there's something called
32:54
Speaker 1: salvage rights, and whether it was your friend who was
32:57
Speaker 1: missing or what have you, you have been pretty foolish
33:01
Speaker 1: to have just sure continued on your way and left
33:04
Speaker 1: the Mary Celeste. Because what they found pretty quickly, and
33:08
Speaker 1: this adds to the mystery itself as well, the Mary
33:11
Speaker 1: Celeste was totally saleable. Well yeah, and I don't even
33:14
Speaker 1: think we pointed out that all the all the denatured
33:18
Speaker 1: alcohol that they were shipping was there and intact, like
33:22
Speaker 1: it's not like they had been uh axed into and
33:26
Speaker 1: or like what would you pillage exploded or exploded. It
33:31
Speaker 1: was all there, All the all the gear on board
33:34
Speaker 1: was there. So there was a lot to salvage, in
33:36
Speaker 1: other words, because not only can you salvage the ship,
33:38
Speaker 1: but the cargo exactly. And what had come out to
33:42
Speaker 1: like between forty five and eighty grand and today eight
33:44
Speaker 1: dollars is what he could have potentially gotten for salvaging
33:49
Speaker 1: this thing. Yeah, because the at the time, the insurers
33:52
Speaker 1: owed a reward to whoever salvaged the ship like this
33:56
Speaker 1: um and and it could run up to a pcent
33:58
Speaker 1: of the value of the cargo or the ship mutual
34:01
Speaker 1: of Nova Scotia big good dollars, which I mean, man,
34:05
Speaker 1: you want to see a board stuffed with neck beards
34:09
Speaker 1: go to that bank. Oh that's good. Um alright, So they,
34:17
Speaker 1: like you said, decided to do the smart thing and
34:20
Speaker 1: the right thing because and it was his friend, just
34:22
Speaker 1: besides the fact that, I mean, anyone would have tried
34:25
Speaker 1: to salvage the ship, but it was also his pal.
34:28
Speaker 1: So I think that probably had a little to do
34:30
Speaker 1: with him saying or maybe it was just all the money. No,
34:34
Speaker 1: I think it was both. I'm sure he was concerned.
34:36
Speaker 1: I've read accounts that he was. He was concerned by this,
34:39
Speaker 1: he said, I very concerned. Yeah, are are are the end?
34:43
Speaker 1: So they take this boat. They actually took um. There
34:46
Speaker 1: was three guys. One of them was Oliver Davo, who
34:50
Speaker 1: was um the first mate of the day Gracia. He
34:53
Speaker 1: was in charge of sailing this very important note. Yeah.
34:57
Speaker 1: He he sailed with just two other guys, this um
35:01
Speaker 1: the Mary Celeste. They pumped out the water from the hold,
35:04
Speaker 1: they fixed the sales, and the night of the day
35:08
Speaker 1: that they found it, they set sail for Gibraltar and
35:12
Speaker 1: just three dudes sailed this thing successfully a thousand kilometers
35:17
Speaker 1: from where it was found onto Gibraltar, where they took
35:20
Speaker 1: it to the salvage court and said pay up. That's right.
35:26
Speaker 1: And this is where things get a little bit weird,
35:28
Speaker 1: because there was a man there, the Queen's Proctor in Gibraltar,
35:33
Speaker 1: by the name of Frederick Sali flood Man that could
35:36
Speaker 1: not be more British, and he basically said, mm hmm,
35:42
Speaker 1: this is uh. You said there was nobody there at all.
35:46
Speaker 1: There's no explanation for any of this, and you want, uh,
35:50
Speaker 1: the equivalent of of eight dollars, thank you, west tag.
35:58
Speaker 1: I think I think there was. I think that was
36:00
Speaker 1: in their dollars. Two. No, it' says contemporary estimate. Doesn't
36:07
Speaker 1: that mean no contemporary at the time? Oh okay, I
36:13
Speaker 1: think I think that was an estimate in their dollars.
36:16
Speaker 1: Is there such a thing as contemporary at the time?
36:18
Speaker 1: Didn't that always mean? Now? I don't know, I gotta
36:22
Speaker 1: I could have gotten it wrong. It's entirely possible. Alright,
36:26
Speaker 1: Well it's it's and we're just figuring stuff out here, folks,
36:29
Speaker 1: so give us a break. So it's in their dollars,
36:34
Speaker 1: so I'm almost positive. Okay, Well, at any rate, he
36:37
Speaker 1: was solely. Flood said, this is um seems really hinky
36:41
Speaker 1: to me, guys, and devote you, sir, since you boarded
36:46
Speaker 1: the thing first, you sailed it here, you are the
36:49
Speaker 1: star witness in this case. Uh. He gave his testimony.
36:52
Speaker 1: It was very clear, nothing weird about it. He was
36:55
Speaker 1: very honest because by all accounts, they had nothing to hide.
36:59
Speaker 1: And but Sally Floods just was suspicious from the beginning. Yes,
37:04
Speaker 1: so much so that during this investigation, and this would
37:06
Speaker 1: be like going to probate court and all of a sudden,
37:09
Speaker 1: the representative for the state accuses you of murdering your grandma.
37:15
Speaker 1: Who's state? Who's the state you're in charge of taking
37:18
Speaker 1: through probate and then suddenly there's this murder investigation, right,
37:24
Speaker 1: just based on the prosecutors suspicions, right, Well, and then
37:28
Speaker 1: he disappeared without a trace. Well, oh yeah, that's a
37:31
Speaker 1: big one to you know, I forgot that part. But
37:33
Speaker 1: but so that's basically what happened to these guys. So
37:36
Speaker 1: they were pretty surprised by this, and Sally Flood launched
37:40
Speaker 1: this investigation. They they inspected the Mary Celeste, They found
37:45
Speaker 1: marks on this the railing which sally Flood was like,
37:48
Speaker 1: these are clearly hatchet marks. There was discoloration on Captain
37:52
Speaker 1: Briggs's sword, this is clearly blood. Well it turned out
37:55
Speaker 1: that the hatchet marks, the axe marks, were actually from
37:59
Speaker 1: the construction and of the um of the ship. That
38:02
Speaker 1: was an axe mark. So no violence there. There wasn't
38:05
Speaker 1: blood on briggs sword. It was just rust. But um,
38:09
Speaker 1: sally Flood was so determined to prosecute these guys that
38:12
Speaker 1: he suppressed the test results. Um that that showed that
38:17
Speaker 1: this was not blood on the sword, that it was
38:20
Speaker 1: actually russ. He really wanted to get these two. Well yeah,
38:23
Speaker 1: and here's the deal. I think things really ramped up when, um,
38:27
Speaker 1: here's what happened before all of this, like uh, deep investigation.
38:32
Speaker 1: Remember that Morehouse still has his ship that was waylaid.
38:36
Speaker 1: And so he says, hey, devote, I gotta stay here
38:38
Speaker 1: for this thing to collect this dough you keep. You
38:41
Speaker 1: just go on to Genoa you've already testified, and take
38:44
Speaker 1: our cargo a petroleum because I gotta get this stuff here.
38:48
Speaker 1: I'm losing money. And so he did so, and so
38:50
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Solely Flood was like whoa, whoa, whoa,
38:53
Speaker 1: he was the he was the number one witness, and
38:55
Speaker 1: you've just sent this guy away, so now I'm super
38:58
Speaker 1: suspicious up but Devote came back. He was like, what what,
39:03
Speaker 1: what's going on? Everybody? So finally, um solid Flood just
39:09
Speaker 1: couldn't come up with any evidence of foul play, but
39:13
Speaker 1: apparently did raise enough suspicion that the probate judge said,
39:19
Speaker 1: you know what, We'll give you guys a reward, but
39:23
Speaker 1: it's gonna be like a tenth of what you actually deserved.
39:27
Speaker 1: So they got a reward of sevounds um, which was
39:31
Speaker 1: jack even in that day. Um, and they they were
39:37
Speaker 1: allowed to go on their way. The Mary Celeste was
39:39
Speaker 1: finally released in February. This this all begin in December.
39:43
Speaker 1: She was released in February to finally carry her cargo
39:47
Speaker 1: of alcohol to Genoa for Genoa and um, that would
39:52
Speaker 1: have been that. And what's weird is when you think
39:55
Speaker 1: about this ghost ship, you just think like, well, obviously
39:59
Speaker 1: they they took her out of service or commission. I
40:02
Speaker 1: gotta remember, this is a business venture ship in those days,
40:05
Speaker 1: just like they are today. It's a business venture and
40:08
Speaker 1: business people are not exactly the sentimental types usually, so
40:13
Speaker 1: once she got to Genoa, they got a new crew,
40:15
Speaker 1: a new captain, and put her right back into service again.
40:19
Speaker 1: So as you say, it just is back out there
40:22
Speaker 1: on the market again, um, taking cargo around the world.
40:26
Speaker 1: And it ran a ground off a reef of Haiti
40:30
Speaker 1: and five and this was all. This is just kind
40:34
Speaker 1: of a weird ending to this ship that was super
40:37
Speaker 1: unlucky or maybe curse who knows. Of course that stuff
40:41
Speaker 1: isn't real, but um, it ran aground in Haiti as
40:46
Speaker 1: part of this insurance fraud scheme. So they cooked up
40:50
Speaker 1: this scheme. Who was the what was the guy's name,
40:54
Speaker 1: the captain, Captain Gilman Perkins. All right, so here's what
40:58
Speaker 1: he did. He basically it like any insurance fraud you
41:01
Speaker 1: could imagine today. Like when I was a kid, there
41:03
Speaker 1: was this uh you know, I didn't grow up in
41:07
Speaker 1: a big neighborhood. I grew up on a street with
41:09
Speaker 1: like seven houses and it was a dirt road until
41:11
Speaker 1: I was like twelve. With the murder house. Now, oh
41:15
Speaker 1: what murder house? Was it a murder house or a
41:17
Speaker 1: haunted house? I can't remember. There was one down the
41:19
Speaker 1: street from you that you were scared to death. Oh yeah,
41:23
Speaker 1: that this was that. So that one was torn down,
41:27
Speaker 1: but a big house was built in its place, but
41:29
Speaker 1: the old barn from the murdery haunted house was still there,
41:34
Speaker 1: and my brother and I would used to go exploring,
41:37
Speaker 1: is what we'll call it now. We basically busted into
41:39
Speaker 1: this barn. We're just checking things out one day, and
41:42
Speaker 1: then about two weeks later the thing burned down. And
41:45
Speaker 1: I remember being a little kid in these insurance detectives,
41:51
Speaker 1: that's what they're called. They are now insurance whatever investigators
41:56
Speaker 1: I claims investigating. They came by and questioned Scott and
42:00
Speaker 1: I were like, what was in that thing? Because this
42:02
Speaker 1: guy is claiming like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth
42:05
Speaker 1: of I can't remember what all he said was in there,
42:07
Speaker 1: and you know, we're a little kids, so we just
42:09
Speaker 1: told the truth. We're like, none of that stuff was
42:11
Speaker 1: in there. We stole. That was a bunch of old
42:15
Speaker 1: foule cabinets and just a bunch of junk. It was
42:17
Speaker 1: just like a junk barn. So I'm not even I
42:20
Speaker 1: need to ask my mom. I'm not sure whatever happened
42:21
Speaker 1: with that, but the guy's probably still in jail because
42:24
Speaker 1: of eight year old Chuck good. That's funny. You got
42:28
Speaker 1: some guys sent up the river. The law prevailed. But
42:31
Speaker 1: that's basically what happened here is this guy purposely wrecks
42:36
Speaker 1: the ship and says, man, there was a lot of
42:38
Speaker 1: really valuable stuff on board. I was I was toting
42:41
Speaker 1: a bunch of bass ale, like the real bass ale
42:45
Speaker 1: that we still enjoyed today. Uh. And then what else
42:48
Speaker 1: was there was a bunch of really expensive shoes. Cutlery, yeah,
42:51
Speaker 1: a bunch of cutlery, fine fish, fine butter. And what
42:55
Speaker 1: was in there a bunch of garbage. It was so
42:58
Speaker 1: so this guy purposely runs the ship the ground. It's
43:00
Speaker 1: insured by five different insurers for a total of thirty
43:04
Speaker 1: four grand in eighteen seventy two dollars contemporary dollars. And
43:10
Speaker 1: and they probably would have gotten away with this, uh.
43:15
Speaker 1: But the captain, Gilman Perkins, went ashore and sold salvage
43:20
Speaker 1: rights to this cargo, this fine cargo that was supposedly
43:23
Speaker 1: on the ship to a local um salvage person in Haiti.
43:29
Speaker 1: And had had he not conn the salvager, then they
43:33
Speaker 1: may again they may have gotten away with this. But
43:36
Speaker 1: the salvager went aboard to get this to recover this cargo,
43:39
Speaker 1: this bass, this um, great butter, great shoes, cutlery, all
43:43
Speaker 1: this stuff and found, like you said, just pure nastiness. There.
43:49
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of junk, a l A lot of
43:50
Speaker 1: the bottles weren't even filled. There were dog collars instead
43:54
Speaker 1: of shoes. Yeah, what else. The cutlery, I know, the
43:58
Speaker 1: cutlery was dog collar. These boots were old galoshes. Yeah,
44:02
Speaker 1: the women's fine shoes. And the butter was the butter
44:07
Speaker 1: was rank slush, I think is what it was called.
44:09
Speaker 1: So this con this con man or the salvagers like
44:13
Speaker 1: I've been conned, and alerts the authorities who get on
44:15
Speaker 1: the case and finally track it all the way back
44:17
Speaker 1: to Boston and Captain Perkins, the last captain of the
44:21
Speaker 1: Mary Celeste. Remember the first captain died, the third or
44:24
Speaker 1: fourth captain disappeared, and the last captain of the ship
44:27
Speaker 1: is facing the gallows for bearer Tree, which is the
44:31
Speaker 1: deliberate destroying of a ship, narrowly avoided being executed for it. Um.
44:39
Speaker 1: I think the jury came back seven to five and
44:41
Speaker 1: he got off just narrowly avoided being killed for it.
44:47
Speaker 1: The the article I read by a guy named Paul Collins.
44:51
Speaker 1: Um supposed that the jury just couldn't bring themselves to
44:55
Speaker 1: kill a person for an insurance fraud scheme. And that
44:59
Speaker 1: was that was it. And now actually a couple of
45:00
Speaker 1: years after they changed the law so that Bara Tree
45:04
Speaker 1: was no longer a capital offense. Um, but you could
45:07
Speaker 1: still get in big trouble for it. But a jury
45:09
Speaker 1: would be more likely to convict if it didn't mean
45:11
Speaker 1: your death, you know. So the the Mary Celeste run
45:16
Speaker 1: aground on this reef met its fate when I guess
45:19
Speaker 1: the government of Haiti paid for um it to be
45:23
Speaker 1: dowsting kerosene instead of flame. All right, well let's take
45:27
Speaker 1: a break and we'll come back and talk a little
45:29
Speaker 1: bit about how the legend of the Mary Celeste lived
45:31
Speaker 1: on and then what may have actually happened that faithful
45:35
Speaker 1: day in November. Alright, So the Mary Celeste, it wasn't
46:04
Speaker 1: some huge sensational story of the time. Um. Locally it
46:08
Speaker 1: probably got a little news, but it wasn't like, you know,
46:11
Speaker 1: it didn't sweep the world. Um. But there was a
46:15
Speaker 1: story written by one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uh called
46:20
Speaker 1: j have a cook. Jepson's statement is the worst made
46:27
Speaker 1: up name I've ever heard in Cornhill Magazine. Also worst
46:30
Speaker 1: magazine name ever. Yeah, but it was like a huge
46:32
Speaker 1: magazine at the time. I know it outsold Cornhole Magazine. Right. Uh,
46:40
Speaker 1: so he write, he writes a story, and what it
46:42
Speaker 1: is is basically this sensationalistic, uh fake account of the
46:47
Speaker 1: Mary Celeste. But everyone takes it as real. Yeah, and
46:52
Speaker 1: he renamed the ship the Marie Celeste. I don't know
46:55
Speaker 1: if it was a mistake on his part or whatever,
46:57
Speaker 1: but that also muddies the waters these days too, as
47:00
Speaker 1: far as Google searches go. Yeah, so everyone thought this
47:03
Speaker 1: thing was real. Um, all these basically presented a bunch
47:07
Speaker 1: of things is fact made up a bunch of stuff like, um,
47:11
Speaker 1: that the tea was still hot and steaming when they
47:14
Speaker 1: climbed aboard, and the beds were still warm, and uh
47:19
Speaker 1: it was sailing perfectly and fully sailed, and breakfast was
47:24
Speaker 1: half eaten, and like there's a cigar still burning. None
47:27
Speaker 1: of this stuff was true. It was all cooked up
47:29
Speaker 1: to make the myth just even creepier. But a lot
47:32
Speaker 1: of people, even today, I still think that stuff is
47:36
Speaker 1: kind of true. Did he did he make all that up?
47:39
Speaker 1: Or was it just kind of added to later on.
47:41
Speaker 1: Well I think I don't know what exactly he made up,
47:45
Speaker 1: but it basically over the years, everyone just started adding
47:49
Speaker 1: stuff like that the lifeboat was still there. You know,
47:52
Speaker 1: none of that stuff was true. Right, So, Um, all
47:55
Speaker 1: of those those facts I'm making scare quotes as you
47:58
Speaker 1: can see, Um, they are they they they lend credence
48:03
Speaker 1: to like really outrageous solutions to this mystery. Right, Like
48:07
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of well some some aren't exactly
48:10
Speaker 1: outragious or preposterous, they're just the evidence doesn't support him.
48:13
Speaker 1: Some are just totally outrageous, right, So you can kind
48:16
Speaker 1: of divide them into different categories, like the natural um phenomenon.
48:22
Speaker 1: There could have been a seaquake, um, which I guess happens,
48:27
Speaker 1: and that usually disturbs the sea above when the sea
48:30
Speaker 1: floor has a massive earthquake, waterspouts, rogue waves. Remember we
48:34
Speaker 1: did a really good episode on rogue waves. Um, giant squid,
48:39
Speaker 1: giant octopus, which fall under the subcategory sea monster. That's
48:45
Speaker 1: the natural stuff sigment the sea monster. Yeah, Um, all right,
48:51
Speaker 1: then there's piracy and murder. Uh these just for the
48:57
Speaker 1: time would make a little more sense. Um, Like Conan
49:02
Speaker 1: Doyle said, uh, that there was an ex slave bent
49:06
Speaker 1: on revenge who just wanted to kill white people and
49:10
Speaker 1: that was in his story, so that that clearly ramped
49:13
Speaker 1: things up. There was a movie in the thirties with
49:15
Speaker 1: Bella Legosi that he was one of the crew members
49:18
Speaker 1: was a murderous sailor with a hook. Oh really, all right,
49:24
Speaker 1: well they always had hooks. Um. Captain Briggs was overcome
49:28
Speaker 1: with religious mania, killed everyone in board, including his family,
49:32
Speaker 1: then killed himself. Uh. Then there was the mutiny theory
49:36
Speaker 1: that everyone got into this alcohol that you couldn't even drink. No,
49:39
Speaker 1: he would die like almost immediately. Yeah, and I guess
49:42
Speaker 1: just got the drunken murderers, the drunken murder rampage. You
49:48
Speaker 1: know what happens when you drink a little, you just
49:50
Speaker 1: want to kill right exactly. But do you remember, um,
49:53
Speaker 1: I guess in our Prohibition episode, it was shown years
49:57
Speaker 1: on that the US government had poison and the bootleg
50:02
Speaker 1: hooch supply natured alcohol and people died and went trying
50:05
Speaker 1: from it. This is this stuff, Yeah, that's how they
50:08
Speaker 1: put into the supply well. And then there's the just
50:10
Speaker 1: the kind of mundane pirate pirate try like, hey, this
50:15
Speaker 1: was where there were North African pirates, and that's probably
50:19
Speaker 1: what happened, is there were it was just a regular
50:21
Speaker 1: run of the middle pirate operation. Yeah, but whether it's
50:24
Speaker 1: like any kind of violence like a um religious fervor
50:28
Speaker 1: or pirates or something like that. There was not any
50:32
Speaker 1: sign of struggle. Remember, and the one lifeboat was missing,
50:36
Speaker 1: so there it would seem that if they got off
50:40
Speaker 1: the ship, they probably got off willingly rather than um
50:45
Speaker 1: there having been some sort of violence. Yeah. And then
50:48
Speaker 1: the also the two brothers. There are a couple of
50:50
Speaker 1: brothers who were to the crew members Volkert and boy Lorenzen,
50:56
Speaker 1: and they were suspects for a little while because none
50:58
Speaker 1: of their personal possessions were found. What apparently there was
51:02
Speaker 1: no motive whatsoever. And a descendant of them said, you know,
51:06
Speaker 1: they had lost all their gear and a previous shipwreck,
51:10
Speaker 1: so just none of that makes any sense. They were
51:12
Speaker 1: good guys, right, so probably was not murder rightly. Plus
51:18
Speaker 1: also the idea that the crew had come across another
51:21
Speaker 1: ship pirated it turned pirate all of a sudden, uh,
51:25
Speaker 1: And we're led by Briggs the idea that and then
51:28
Speaker 1: just just took this other ship and set off set
51:31
Speaker 1: sail to start a new life elsewhere. Um, it doesn't
51:35
Speaker 1: make much sense on its face, but even if you
51:37
Speaker 1: dig down just one more degree and remember that they
51:40
Speaker 1: left their son Arthur behind. She became an orphan on
51:44
Speaker 1: the day that the day Gratia found the Mary Celeste.
51:48
Speaker 1: That's even it lends even less credence to to that.
51:51
Speaker 1: So yeah, again, he was fairly dim weighted they left
51:56
Speaker 1: them behind. Not a very likable kid. He had a
51:58
Speaker 1: real temper for no good reason. Didn't like cake. Who
52:01
Speaker 1: doesn't like cake? So um the murder piracy or lastly,
52:07
Speaker 1: so remember the Captain Moorehouse dined with Captain Briggs and
52:14
Speaker 1: his wife the night before they headed out, and then
52:18
Speaker 1: Captain Moorehouse is the one who found the ship and
52:21
Speaker 1: claimed salvage rights to it. The idea that it was
52:23
Speaker 1: fraud and maybe a fraudulent scheme cooked up that one's
52:27
Speaker 1: really dismissed too, again by the presence of Arthur. Arthur
52:31
Speaker 1: ruined everything. So you can dismiss murder piracy or fraud. Typically,
52:37
Speaker 1: what about paranormal Let's go ahead and dismiss that too, Okay,
52:41
Speaker 1: because I don't think that the bebun To triangle eight
52:45
Speaker 1: them or that aliens. It's aliens, man, I don't think
52:49
Speaker 1: that happened. Yeah, that's a big one. Uh So let's
52:53
Speaker 1: just go ahead and not even talk about that too
52:55
Speaker 1: much because that's dumb. So that that Frederick sally Floods
52:59
Speaker 1: obsession with this whole thing at the time contemporarily um
53:05
Speaker 1: document presented like the documented evidence we have concerning the case.
53:09
Speaker 1: So it's good that he did this, that he was
53:11
Speaker 1: gripped by this this paranoia of the suspicion, right, um,
53:15
Speaker 1: because we do know some facts about the thing. We
53:18
Speaker 1: know that like, like we said, the ship was found
53:21
Speaker 1: with just three three sails up and the rest were
53:24
Speaker 1: either blown down or unfurled. The lifeboat was missing. There
53:28
Speaker 1: was a rope dangling over the side from the back
53:31
Speaker 1: of the ship into the water. Nine of the Sevre
53:36
Speaker 1: one casks were intact, but we're actually empty, and on
53:41
Speaker 1: closer inspection they were made of red oak, which is
53:44
Speaker 1: more porous than white oak, which the other seventeen hundred
53:47
Speaker 1: and one UM barrels were made of and were intact
53:51
Speaker 1: and still full. So we know these things about the
53:54
Speaker 1: ship that that that are actually correct, and they've been
53:59
Speaker 1: put together other to to kind of create this explanation
54:03
Speaker 1: that again isn't definitive, doesn't prove it once and for all.
54:07
Speaker 1: What happened that will never happen now, which I love.
54:10
Speaker 1: But there's there's a pretty good explanation I think that
54:14
Speaker 1: we both kind of agree is is the likeliest explanation. Yeah,
54:18
Speaker 1: so those casks that that leaked but did not explode
54:21
Speaker 1: or anything. Uh, there could have been a smell. There
54:25
Speaker 1: could have been a sound. There could have been just
54:29
Speaker 1: some indication that maybe this ship is about to blow
54:32
Speaker 1: up or we are in danger. Uh, they had taken
54:36
Speaker 1: on a little water that might have played into it.
54:38
Speaker 1: But what really everyone thinks played into it is like
54:41
Speaker 1: we said at the beginning, was that he had his
54:43
Speaker 1: wife and and toddler aboard, so he was taking no chances,
54:47
Speaker 1: which would thoroughly explain why they got off of that
54:51
Speaker 1: boat really quickly at the very first signs that something
54:54
Speaker 1: could be wrong. So that those nine red oak barrels
54:59
Speaker 1: that were empty had three hundred gallons of d natured
55:02
Speaker 1: highly flammable alcohol in them, it would yeah, it would
55:06
Speaker 1: have smelled, It could have created a fireball explosion. Um,
55:10
Speaker 1: it could have blown the hatches off it could have
55:13
Speaker 1: done a lot of things that that would have made
55:15
Speaker 1: a reasonable person, especially when that's also concerned for the
55:18
Speaker 1: life of his wife and child, say, the likeliest thing
55:22
Speaker 1: we should do here, the most reasonable thing we should
55:24
Speaker 1: do here is get off of the ship. So considering
55:27
Speaker 1: that there was this alcohol aboard, some of it was missing, um,
55:32
Speaker 1: and that the lifeboat was gone, and that the log
55:35
Speaker 1: book showed that they were within sight of land the
55:39
Speaker 1: last time they had made any kind of entry, supports
55:43
Speaker 1: the idea that they had all gotten into the lifeboat
55:46
Speaker 1: willingly because probably that alcohol and then the the the
55:52
Speaker 1: water that the ship had taken on. Yeah. And apparently
55:55
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six it was a study at
55:57
Speaker 1: University College of London where they they tried to produce
56:01
Speaker 1: what that explosion might have looked like and uh sounded
56:04
Speaker 1: like and uh they did it with butchane, So I
56:08
Speaker 1: guess is that about the same thing. I don't know
56:10
Speaker 1: why they used putane instead of alcohol vapors. I have
56:13
Speaker 1: no idea why, but they feel like it was pretty definitive. Yeah,
56:17
Speaker 1: And so basically it caused a big brilliant flame and
56:20
Speaker 1: made a sound, but because it was this vapor, there
56:23
Speaker 1: was no it didn't like burn everything up, It didn't
56:25
Speaker 1: scorch anything, There was no soot, There was no evidence.
56:29
Speaker 1: So if this would have happened on board this guy's
56:31
Speaker 1: got his wife and his toddler, that would have been
56:33
Speaker 1: enough to create a panic. And that that's where my
56:36
Speaker 1: money is, for sure, for sure. And plus also I
56:38
Speaker 1: mean like that that the explosion of the exploding alcohol
56:42
Speaker 1: theory had been around for a while but had been
56:44
Speaker 1: dismissed because they were like, well, it would have left
56:47
Speaker 1: some evidence. But this study showed that no, it could
56:49
Speaker 1: have actually blown blown up and scared the heck out
56:53
Speaker 1: of these people and gotten him off this boat into
56:55
Speaker 1: the lifeboat which they would have had um connected to
56:59
Speaker 1: the ship, the Mary Celeste by this four foot or
57:03
Speaker 1: four hundred yards. It was a very long rope inch
57:06
Speaker 1: thick rope called the Halliard, and they had connected the
57:10
Speaker 1: lifeboat to it. And what they supposed happened was that, um,
57:13
Speaker 1: they kept a few of the sales down, some of
57:16
Speaker 1: them still furled uh to let the ship keep going,
57:21
Speaker 1: but at a slow pace because it was going to
57:23
Speaker 1: they were going to have to ride behind it for
57:25
Speaker 1: an indefinite period of time. And that the wind caught
57:28
Speaker 1: it just right, sped the ship up, snapped the line,
57:32
Speaker 1: and then within an hour the lifeboat was adrift with
57:36
Speaker 1: the Mary Celeste out of sight. So was the idea
57:38
Speaker 1: that they got in the boat attached with the rope
57:42
Speaker 1: attached to just say, hey, let's like get away from
57:44
Speaker 1: it and see what happens here. Yes, okay, And then
57:47
Speaker 1: and then it just starts going. The rope is gone,
57:50
Speaker 1: and then they're like, well, I can't catch it now, right,
57:53
Speaker 1: And and they would have been left a drift at
57:55
Speaker 1: sea um to die, which is what everybody thinks happened. Yeah,
58:00
Speaker 1: And I guess at the time there would be uh,
58:04
Speaker 1: unless I got really lucky or unlucky in the rowboat
58:08
Speaker 1: eventually uh washed ashore somewhere. They would just be no trace, right, Yes,
58:14
Speaker 1: they just were fish food. Yeah. I mean if they're
58:17
Speaker 1: out in the Atlantic, especially if they just six miles
58:20
Speaker 1: away from an island that's in the middle of nowhere.
58:22
Speaker 1: It's pretty pretty middle of nowhere. So if you're in
58:26
Speaker 1: a small boat there, you would you it would be
58:29
Speaker 1: very easy to vanish without a trace forever. I bet that,
58:32
Speaker 1: like that story is the sad one is what those
58:35
Speaker 1: final days were like. Yes, that kid. Yeah, heartbreaking. So uh,
58:42
Speaker 1: that's the story of the Mary Celeste. Good job, good job,
58:47
Speaker 1: you Chuck. I feel like we kicked the rest off
58:49
Speaker 1: the sword on this one. If you want to know
58:51
Speaker 1: more about the Mary Celeste, there is plenty more to
58:54
Speaker 1: dig into. This is a nice rabbit hole to jump down.
58:57
Speaker 1: If you want to do that kind of thing. Just
59:00
Speaker 1: go search Google. Say no, Google, I mean Mary Celeste
59:03
Speaker 1: and uh started off. You'll have fun and in the
59:06
Speaker 1: In the meantime, it's time for listener, ma'am, I'm gonna
59:11
Speaker 1: call this local listener. Hey, guys, my name is Sally
59:15
Speaker 1: and I am a sophomore at Emrine University. Started listening
59:19
Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know two years ago when I
59:20
Speaker 1: was on a school exchange in Beijing. But began as
59:23
Speaker 1: a fun way to bide time and bumper to bumper traffic,
59:27
Speaker 1: turned into a complete obsession. You're a quick banter made
59:30
Speaker 1: me feel at home on the other side of the
59:31
Speaker 1: world while you're engaging in well developed topics. Reignited my
59:35
Speaker 1: love of learning. Uh. Since leaving e Marie, I frequently
59:38
Speaker 1: imagine bumping into you, guys and Decatur in Atlanta and
59:41
Speaker 1: having the opportunity to chat about your journey from college
59:45
Speaker 1: kids at you g A to potentially the most interesting
59:48
Speaker 1: and vibrant guys i've heard. Wow, you're vibrant, buddy. Thank you.
59:53
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by how you do what you do, and
59:54
Speaker 1: there's nothing I would love more than be a fly
59:56
Speaker 1: on the wall of the show. From your creative process
59:59
Speaker 1: to your tangential tidbits, whatever topic you happen to be covering.
1:00:03
Speaker 1: I'm fully captivated by every facet. It's nice, huh. I
1:00:10
Speaker 1: still have not declared a major. She wrote a lot
1:00:12
Speaker 1: more really nice stuff, but um, I had to edit
1:00:15
Speaker 1: it for content or for time. I have still not
1:00:18
Speaker 1: declared a major, and I'm still essentially a ball of
1:00:20
Speaker 1: frenetic energy. But you guys have helped me because you
1:00:23
Speaker 1: helped me tap into that phonetic energy and productively exercise
1:00:27
Speaker 1: my burning and satiall desire to learn to think the
1:00:29
Speaker 1: question and you grow now as a young adult and
1:00:33
Speaker 1: until the nurses need to pinch my oxygen tank and
1:00:35
Speaker 1: physically made me stop. Well a million, thanks that is,
1:00:39
Speaker 1: Sally Jinks. Thanks a lot, Sally. That's pretty great. Um,
1:00:43
Speaker 1: very sweet, Yeah it is. And good luck with the
1:00:46
Speaker 1: rest of your schooling. Okay. If you want to get
1:00:50
Speaker 1: in touch with us and pay us some high compliments
1:00:52
Speaker 1: like Sally Dude, We're always down with that. You can
1:00:55
Speaker 1: tweet to us at josh um Clark or s y
1:00:58
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1:01:03
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1:01:08
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1:01:09
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1:01:16
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1:01:19
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