Mary Celeste: Salvage Insurance Fraud or Real Mystery - Historical Maritime Fraud

BRIG: Two-masted square-rigged ship, typically having an additional lower fore-and-aft sail on the gaff and a boom to the mainmast. Till the beginning of 20th Century it was using for sea trading.

- Dr. Soumi Mukherjee

Ghost ships have long captured the imagination of people. These are vessels that are found adrift or abandoned at sea with no crew on board. Ghost ships can be traced back to the early days of seafaring, and their mysterious nature has led to many stories and legends surrounding them. The history of ghost ships is a long and varied one, with accounts of abandoned vessels dating back centuries. Despite the supernatural connotations of ghost ships, they have had a significant impact on the maritime industry.

The discovery of abandoned vessels can lead to investigations into safety and security practices, and the recovery of valuable cargo from these ships can be a lucrative business. These ships are often believed to be cursed, abandoned, or lost at sea, and sightings of them have been reported throughout history.

The fate of the captain and crew of the Mary Celeste remains one of the most enduring maritime mysteries in history. The mystery may very well have been left alone had author Arthur Conan Doyle not written the 1884 short story "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement," a fictitious account of an ex-slave who captures a ship called the Marie Celeste. The story reignited interest in the ship, but as a theory, the story is entirely baseless.

The keel of the future "Mary Celeste" was laid in late 1860 at the shipyard of Joshua Dewis in the village of Spencer's Island, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. The ship was constructed of locally felled timber, with two masts, and was rigged as a brigantine. She was launched on May 18, 1861, given the name "Amazon", and registered at nearby Parrsboro on June 10, 1861. Her registration documents described her as 99.3 feet in length, 25.5 feet broad, with a depth of 11.7 feet, and of 198.42 gross tonnage. She was owned by a local consortium of nine people, headed by Dewis; among the co-owners was Robert McLellan, the ship's first captain.