MARY CELESTE

 

I believe the mystery of the Mary Celeste was solved in the late spring of 1873, on the long, lonely silver beach called the Playa del Silencio - the beach of silence (above). It was a fitting place for such a tragic tale to conclude.

The sea to the north is a stormy and fog shrouded arm of the Atlantic known as the Bay of Biscay. According to a report in a Liverpool newspaper, just off this rugged limestone coast with it's endless bays and rugged inlets, Spanish fishermen stumbled upon the final chapter of a maritime tragedy.   

Two makeshift rafts loosely tied together rolled in the turbulent waters. One was flying an American flag. On it were the decomposed remains of  a single human being. Lashed to the second were five more, badly decomposed bodies.  Could this have been the end for the crew of the Marie Celeste? 

She was brig; carvel built, "the hull planking flush rather than overlapping", just under 100 feet from bow to stern, 25 feet wide, weighing 198 tons with two main masts. She had been  built for the North Atlantic shipping trade, and launched from Spencer's Island in the Bay Of Fundy, Nova Scotia, Canada  on 18 May, 1861. And she was always a sad ship.

Her first captain, Robert McLellen, died of pneumonia after filling the Mary Celeste with her maiden cargo of lumber.  Her second captain, John Nutting Parker, delivered the lumber to London, but struck and sank a fishing brig on the voyage home.  In 1867 a storm ran her ashore and her owners sold her for salvage. Repaired and refitted, the Mary Celeste went back to work. Then in early 1872 new owners invested another $10,000 in the Marie Celeste, increasing her length to 103 feet, and adding a second deck above the water line. 

One hundred tons heavier, and at anchor at Staten Island, New York City, by 3 November, 1872 the Mary Celeste had been loaded with 1,700 barrels of denatured alcohol, (meaning chemicals had been added making it poisonous to humans), This cargo was bound for a customer in Genoa Italy. That night her new captain and partial owner, Benjamin Spooner Biggs (above), wrote his mother in Marion, Massachusetts, describing his new quarters which he shared with his wife and 2 year old daughter. 

"It seems real homelike since Sarah and Sophia (above) got here, and we enjoy our little quarters…We seem to have a very good mate and steward and I hope I shall have a pleasant voyage… Our vessel is in beautiful trim and I hope we shall have a fine passage, but I have never been in her before and can’t say how she'll sail....Hoping to be with you in the spring with much love, I am yours, affectionately, Benjamin.”

Sarah Biggs wrote to her own mother that Monday night, urging her to remind the couple's 7 year old son Arthur, who had been left behind to attend school, to "be a good boy".  She also added to her that the crew appeared to be "quietly capable...if they continue as they have begun".

The Mary Celeste sailed from pier 50, Staten Island, with a crew of seven. Albert Richardson was the first mate, and had sailed under Captain Biggs before. Second mate was 25 year old Andrew Gilling from New York City. The steward was Edward William Head.  The able seamen were 4 Germans from the Frisian Islands - Arian Martens, Gottlieb Goudschaal, and brothers Volkert and Boz Lorenson. They were all experienced and well known to their peers as "calm, balanced...and highly qualified". " Captain Briggs wrote he was "extremely pleased with both the ship and the crew".

As the sun set that Tuesday, 5 November, 1872, the Mary Celeste passed through the 100 foot wide Verrazano Narrows, between Staten Island and Brooklyn and entered the North Atlantic. By night fall she had faded away - a tiny capsule of humanity on a vast indifferent ocean. Her next stop was scheduled to be would be two weeks later, at the port of Gibraltar, 3,520 miles away, at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, where she would resupply with food and water. 

Also docked on Staten Island that Tuesday was the merchant brigantine, Dei Gratia, Latin for "The Grace of God".  She was a decade younger than the Mary Celeste, and had been built in the village of Bear River, on Nova Scotia, also near the wide mouth of the Bay of Fundy. She was bigger than the Mary Celeste, weighing  296 tons, was 111 feet long and 28 feet wide. Under captain David Morehouse the Dei Gratia left Staten Island on 15 November, 1872,  ten days behind the Mary Celeste.  

The Dei Gratia had a smooth voyage and three weeks later, on 4 December, in the open sea, the lookout reported a ship at five miles distance which was sailing oddly. The sails, two of which were fully rigged, appeared to be slightly torn. 

As Captain Morehouse moved closer he realized she was the Mary Celeste. There were no distress flags flying and everything otherwise appeared normal except in two hours of observation not a soul appeared on deck. Three men were sent to board the Mary Celeste.

The boarding crew reported “…the whole ship was a thoroughly wet mess”, but fully seaworthy. She still carried a six month supply of food and fresh water. However,  there was not a single living soul on board, not even a cat.

The crew’s personal possessions appeared untouched, including their valuables, and their foul weather gear. There were no signs of a struggle, although the Captain’s cabin was in considerable disarray. No flag was found.

The log book, the sextant and chronometer were all missing, as was the 20 foot life boat with sail. A thick line had been tied to the Mary Celeste’s railing. The other end was frayed and dragging in the current.  A three man crew sailed the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar, where an Admiralty’s court was convened and a commission was appointed to investigate the mystery.  

The investigation found that nine of the 1,700 barrels of alcohol aboard the Mary Celeste were empty. But the boarding party had reported smelling no fumes. The last entry in the captain’s log was dated 24 November, 1872 - when the Mary Celeste was 100 miles off Santa Maria, the southern most of the Azores islands. This seemed to imply that the ship had sailed another 370 miles in nine days with no one at the helm.  

Frederick Solly-Flood, the Attorney General for Gibraltar (above), seems to have suspected the captain and crew of the Dei Gratia of some involvement, but all suggestion of evil was shown to be baseless after a suspected blood stain on a knife was proven to be mere rust.  A diver found the hull did not “…exhibit any trace of damage or injury or…had any collision or had struck upon any rock or shoal or had met with any accident or casualty.” The commission’s final judgment was that there was no evidence of foul play, piracy, mutiny or violence. 

But if that were so why would a healthy crew abandon a seaworthy ship in the middle of the ocean?  Water spouts? Sea monsters? Or could it have been a mutiny by the crew?  Why would experienced sailors abandon a sea worthy ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The British suspicions undoubtedly influenced what the Admiralty’s court did next. The crew of the Dei Gratia was awarded $46,000 in salvage rights for the Mary Celeste (the equivalent of a quarter of a million dollars today). But this was barely 20% of what the ship and cargo had been insured for. 

Over the next year the owners and American authorities offered a reward and conducted a search in ports large and small around the Atlantic rim, for anyone matching the description of Captain Briggs, his wife and child, or any of the crew members from the Mary Celeste. Not a trace was found. It was as if they had simply vanished from the face of the earth. 

The Mary Celeste was returned to her owners and remained an unlucky ship.  She was sold 17 times over the next 13 years. Finally, in 1885, she was driven onto a reef off Haiti and then set afire in an insurance scam. But she refused to sink and the owner was jailed. The sad, unlucky Mary Celeste slowly decomposed on the reef until a storm finally freed her last timbers to slide into the sea (above).

This leaves me to ponder the fate of the human cargo of the Mary Celeste; a woman and child and eight men - ten souls in a twenty foot single masted yawl life boat. Did they panic? The condition of the cabins suggests they did not. Whatever their reason for abandoning the Mary Celeste, once they did they were fully exposed to the winds of fate. 

The weather service on the Azores records that on the morning of 24 November, 1872  -  the date of the Captain Benjamin Biggs' last log entry -  a gale blew up with torrential rains, a gale which finally blew itself out only on the morning of 4 December - the morning the lookout on the Dei Gratia spotted the abandoned Mary Celeste. This mean the Mary Celeste had suffered a very bad crossing. 

Suppose, for some reason - perhaps because of a leak of explosive alcohol fumes, or  crew members driven mad by drinking the denatured alcohol - or suppose a broken bilge pump, and a disassembled pump had been found on deck, suppose for whatever reason Captain Biggs had become convinced the ship was taking on water and foundering - suppose any of those events had convinced him to abandon ship in good weather.   

And suppose a gale had suddenly blown up, which separated the life boat from the ship, and had driven the desperate little yawl northeastward for three or four days while breaking the little life boat to bits. And suppose the survivors had gathered the flotsam into a pair of rafts.

The Azores current travels north eastward at 2 knots an hour away from the islands, toward Portugal and northern Spain,  Without food or water, suppose those rafts, carrying the remains of the crew, and still tied together, had drifted for five months into Biscayne Bay. 

And suppose the rope joining those rafts had finally separated, just before they were driven in toward The Beach of Silence, on the northern coast of Spain. Suppose all of that happened. That may have been what happened to the crew of the Mary Celeste. 

I think it was possible. And I think, had she lived,  little Sophia would have grown into a very lovely young lady. 

- 30 -

THE PETER PAN PRINCIPLE

 

I assume you have heard of the most famous work by Dr. Laurence Peter, who created "The Peter Principle.” It states that in any hierarchy “every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”. Well, I have observed a related behavior in human males which I call “The Peter Pan Principle”. 

Peter Pan was the theatrical character, the boy who never grew up, and my theory postulates that some males emotionally stagnate in adolescence.  And the example is the life long adolescent, Arthur Brown , second cousin to Calvin Coolidge, and a man whose dramatic life reached its pinnacle on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and its nadir ten years later and a block away, on the floor of a hotel bedroom. To put it another way - Arthur Brown slept his way to the bottom.

Arthur  (above) grew in up in the 1840's on a Michigan farm, with two older sisters - he was a baby Moses floating on the estrogen Nile. Family friends generously described him as possessing a “keen intellect” but less perceptive on “moral issues”.  

When Arthur was 13 his progressive minded parents dragged him to the center of Ohio so that his older sisters could attend the Unitarian funded Antioch College (above).  And Arthur eventually entered that institution as well.   As was to be expected given its progressive coeducational provenance, the academic standards at this institute of higher learning were high, while the standards of discipline were a bit fuzzy. 

The students did not pass or fail, they instead received a “narrative evaluation” for each class. It was the perfect environment for Arthur, giving him easy access to mother figures and women he could manipulate. In short he seems to have been confused as to the advice of the school's first President, Horace Mann; “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

After graduating from Antioch, Arthur earned a law degree and spent the Civil War years back in Kalamazoo Michigan, building a successful criminal law practice, marrying, and fathering a daughter. And when his mid-life crises came, Arthur's response was almost pre-ordained. 

He fell in love with a younger woman - Ms. Isabel Cameron (above), daughter of the powerful Republican State Senator, David “The Don” Cameron, and wife of a clerk.  Arthur bought his new mistress a horse and buggy, and rented her a house. 

Now, no rational person would have expected to keep such a high profile romance secret in a town of just 20,000. And one night in 1876 Arthur's offended spouse surprised the loving couple in his law offices. Mrs. Brown was armed with a loaded revolver, but luckily she proved a poor marks-woman. The entire town sided with the wife when she threw Arthur out on his ear.  The man-child Casanova now moved to Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, evidently under the mistaken impression that Mormons were open to open marriages. 

Arthur was expecting to be appointed the U.S. District Attorney for Utah, but the pall of smoke from the Republican bridges he had burned in Kalamazoo obscured his prospects. So he opened a law office at 212 South Main Street in Salt Lake City (above), where he quickly duplicated his Michigan success. The local newspaper judged Arthur to be “a good hater,.” and described him as “Gentile in faith, but a Mormon in practice.” Little did they know. 

By 1879, when he was rejoined by the still smitten Isabel,  Arthur (above) was a millionaire. And the instant his Michigan divorce was finalized, Isabel became the second Mrs. Brown. Arthur bought a fine house in the fashionable section of South Temple Street, and, in time produced a son - his second -  whom they named Max. 

In 1894 Arthur was sent to Washington as one of Utah's  first two senators. The New York Times described him as “an intense, bitter partisan...Always pugnacious...”  His honorary post ended after only one year, and he did not run for election. He returned to his profitable law practice and his family, in that order.  In 1896 Arthur was a delegate to the Republican National Convention held in St. Louis. 

And it was there he met his next mistress (that we know of), secretary for the local Republican party, Mrs. Anne Maddison Bradley (above). He was 53, and she was 23.  It became apparent that Arthur had a type - younger.

Annie was the editor of the Salt Lake City Woman's Club magazine, a member of the Woman’s Press Club and the Poet's Roundtable. She was also a charter member of the Salt Lake City Unitarian Church. She was everything a rich Unitarian might seek in a mistress, if you overlooked her clerk husband, Clearance A. "Ned" Bradley and their two children.  But wouldn't that just make her more likely to be discreet? 

The convention (above) nominated William McKinley on the first ballot, allowing Arthur and Anne to consummated their affair so quickly that Arthur overlooked yet another impediment to his new mistress - a vine of insanity intertwining several roots of  Madison family tree.

Back in booming Salt Lake City (above), Annie at once separated from her husband, Clarence. He started drinking to excess, and then gambling to excess. A couple of years later Clarence conveniently ended up in jail.  Anne testified later that Arthur then “...began coming to my house at very unseemly hours, and I told him it must stop, but he answered. 'Darling, we will go through life together. I want you to have a son' and after several months we did.”  

Arthur Brown Bradley (above) was born 7 February, 1902. Shortly thereafter Arthur took a suite at the Independence Hotel. He informed Isabel - remember wife number 2? -  that he was going to file for divorce. He even took Annie with him on a trip to Washington, D.C,  staying in adjoining rooms at the Raleigh Hotel, just behind the Capital, at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12^th street.

When the divorce papers arrived back in Utah, Isabel was finally spurred to action.  When hitting Arthur with a horse whip did not dissuade him from seeing his mistress, Isabel had both Arthur and Annie arrested and charged with adultery - four times in six months.  The Salt Lake City “Desert News" was present at the last arraignment. Said the News, “Arthur Brown On the Rampage...Says He Was Knocked Down By an Officer.” 

Arthur accused the police of notifying the newspapers in advance of his arrest - it was probably Isabel - and denounced the arrest of Annie -  in a very loud voice. “They dragged her through the streets", he shouted, "One on each side of her. Armed to the teeth. Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!” 

Judge Christopher Diehl asked Arthur, “How do you expect to keep such things out of the papers when you yell so you can be heard for two blocks?” Eventually the headlines would read, “Arthur Brown Goes Scot Free.”  But all the dramatics took a toll on Arthur's reputation and his income.  

His last arrest forced some reflection and re-evaluation upon Arthur. He moved back into the house on South Temple (above) with Isabel.  Annie was offered a house of her own and $100 a month to stay away from Arthur. To Arthur's great surprise, she turned it down. 

And a few months later Arthur slipped away to meet Annie in room 11 of the Pacific Hotel in Pocatello, Idaho.  Their passionate reunion was interrupted by Isabel banging on the door. Arthur admitted his wife, at the same time asking his law partner - what the hell was he doing there? -  to please, “Come in, I don't want to be left alone here with them.”

Annie, the mistress,  began civilly enough. “How do you do, Mrs. Bradley? I have wanted to talk to you.”  But Isabel's first instinct was not for conversation. She clamped her hands around Annie's throat and began throttling her. 

The men separated the combatants, and the women spent the next several hours screaming accusations at each other, while Arthur cringed in the corner, if not in the center of the room, then still the center of attention. Come the dawn, Isabel returned home and Arthur Brown stupidly gave Annie a .32 caliber revolver, should Isabel seek a second confrontation. It seemed Annie had won.

But upon Annie's return to Salt Lake City, Arthur's law partner informed her that Isabel and Arthur had “reconciled”.   The offer of a house and weekly stipend was renewed, and Arthur now pointedly denied his paternity of Annie's son, Arthur Brown Bradley.  And being three months pregnant with yet another gift from Arthur, Annie reluctantly agreed to cease and desist any contact with the adolescent lawyer.  She gave birth to her second child by Arthur, on 24 November, 1903.  But to prove she had not given up on her obsession,  she named the new child Martin Montgomery Brown Bradly. 

Despite promises to his wife, Arthur maintained a discreet contact with Annie, at least until August of 1905, when Isabel died of cancer. Abruptly the path seemed cleared for Annie and Arthur to marry. But they did not... that is, Arthur did not make any offer of marriage.

He was 63 years old now, and already had another mistress, someone closer to his own age for a change,  She was Ms. Annie Adams Kiskadden (above, left). She was the mother of Maude Adams (above, right), Utah's famed actress, best known for originating the stage role of Peter Pan. 

If she did not know about the past mistress, Annie Bradley must have suspected this one. She was now 33 years old herself, divorced, the mother of four, and had no income. Swallowing a little more pride she asked her millionaire boyfriend for $2,000 to start a new life.  Arthur Brown ignored that request, but did present her with a one way train ticket to California for herself and the children. Then he left for Washington, D.C. 

This slap in the face finally snapped something in Annie, just the way something had snapped in the two previous Mrs. Browns, one after the other, before her.  Annie traded in her ticket for herself and her sons to California for a one way trip for herself only to Washington, D.C.

Annie arrived in town on Saturday, 8 December, 1906. As she expected, Arthur was registered again at the Raleigh Hotel (above). Annie registered as Mrs. A. Brown, and took the room next to Arthur's. 

Conning the maid into opening the connecting door, Annie searched Arthur's room until she found letters from Annie Adams Kiskadden, which discussed marriage plans. No one should be surprised that after waiting for Arthur's return, Annie shot him with the very gun he had given her for self defense.  I guess you could say that's what she used it for.

What can you say about a man who keeps inspiring the women in his life to shoot at him? Once might be an accident,. twice might be an unlikely coincidence - but three times? And the last time, he supplied the gun!  When the hotel manager bent down over Arthur (above), he said only, “She shot me.” As if he was surprised. 

Indeed, she had. Judging by the powder burns on his hands the Unitarian gigolo was reaching for the gun when Annie pulled the trigger. And six days later the gentile polygamist  died -  13 December, 1906. His obituary in the New York Times noted with faint praise, that Arthur had been “intensely loyal to his male friends.” 

As final proof of his childish character, Arthur's will renounced both of his sons by Annie. “I expressly provide that neither or any of them shall receive anything from my estate.” It almost makes you wish he had lived, so somebody could have shot the S.O.B a fourth time.

A  jury agreed. Annie had entered a plea of “temporary insanity” but almost on the first anniversary of the shooting, and after just nine hours of deliberations, the jury instead found Annie simply not guilty. The misdirected Juliet walked out of the court room a free woman. 

Annie returned to Salt Lake City (above) and opened an antique store called “My Shop” And she made a success of it, running her own business, raising her two sons by Arthur on her own, until her death on 11 November, 1950.

Thus the life of Arthur Brown, who never seemed to get any older than he was at the age of twelve. And don't we all know at least one like guy like that? 

                                      - 30 -