Dei Gratia, Good Samaritan Rescuer of the Ghost Ship Mary Celeste in 1872

Summary: Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia (by the grace of God) was the Good Samaritan rescuer of the ghost ship Mary Celeste in 1872.

Dei Gratia in April 1873 at Messina, Sicily, : from painting by Giuseppe Coli

Assisting distressed ships cannot be its own reward

The Latin phrase Dei Gratia acknowledges thanks by the grace of God. One of its most famous non-Church uses begins with a 19th-century ship. The name calls to mind the rescue vessel to the world's most famous ghost ship and maritime mystery, Mary Celeste.

Posterity deems as conducive to the closure of the 10-member crew's relatives the abandoned, yawing Heavenly Mary being sighted around 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Dec. 4 (civilian time) or 5 (nautical reckoning), 1872. Examination of the events transpiring after that brave recovery encouraged less immediately reassuring interpretations for the crews' families. Historians find turning points in the course and impacts of Vice Admiralty Court of Gibraltar salvage proceedings.

Friendship between captains is not prelude to fraud

Back stories give experiential information that cast events and people in better or worse lights. Historians have access to details unknown during salvage hearings from Dec. 17, 1872, to March 14, 1873. A Boston Post interview reprinted Sept. 12, 1926, on page 44 of The Literary Digest included Dei Gratia Captain's widow Desiah Foster Morehouse's reminiscences regarding husband David Reed Morehouse's Astor House dinner Nov. 4, 1872, with Benjamin Spooner Briggs and wife Sarah Elizabeth Cobb Briggs, and planned rendezvous in Messina, Sicily, December 1872.

Posterity knows of Captain Morehouse as first to discover Captain Briggs' disappearance and of Burnett as last to see him upon receiving $40.00 for harbor-piloting Mary Celeste through the Verrazano Narrows shortcut Nov. 7, 1872.

Judges and prosecutors get expenses covered, salvagers ... not

And yet history leaves few details about Dei Gratia. One reason manifests itself concerning salvage verdicts that described Mary Celeste, excoriated both crews and subtracted court costs from a low 18 percent, not a standard 36 percent, award of $8,300 on a cargo of 1,701 wine-filled barrels correctly valued at $36,000 and a $15,000 ship incorrectly valued at $5,700. Nobody noted Dei Gratia's description other than as a Bear River-constructed, west Nova Scotia freighter with British flag-flying mainmast and cargo of 1,735 barrels of petroleum from New York, U.S.A., for Genoa, Italy; as a dark-hulled, solid-built brigantine co-owned with his Nova Scotia neighbors and mastered on the shares by David; and as a half, hermaphroditic brig with fore-and-aft-sailing, not square-sailed, mainmast.

Nothing is hidden or lost to dedicated researchers

Ongoing research operates to vindicate both crews. Its evidence points to David, second mate John Wright and three seamen (including Lutheran-adhering, Russian-speaking John Johnson) docking Dei Gratia in Gibraltar Dec. 12, 1872, and to first mate Oliver Deveau landing Mary Celeste at Gibraltar with seamen Augustus Anderson and Charles Lund Dec. 13, 1872, leaving Dei Gratia's petroleum at Genoa before year-end and loading Dei Gratia's fruit from Messina in March 1873.

Subsequent research quibbles with Oliver's obituary in Nova Scotia's Digby Courier of Sept. 20, 1912, referencing Mary Celeste's inherent unsolvability. It reaffirms Dei Gratia's valor in preventing fume-riddled, weather-ravaged Mary Celeste from sinking, like Captain Briggs' crew, below the waves.

Mary Celeste was originally named Amazon; painting, with inscription "Amazon of Parrsboro. J.N. Parker, Commander, entering Marseilles, Nov'b'r 1861," depicts the carvel-built brigantine, then under the command of John "Jack" Nutting Parker (Amazon's second captain; June 19, 1861-1863); artist possibly attributed as Joseph Honoré Maxime Pellegrin (1793-1869), French maritime artist and ship portraitist, by Paul Begg in Mary Celeste: The Greatest Mystery of the Sea (2007: page 18): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Dei Gratia at Messina, Sicily, in April 1873; from 1873 painting by Giuseppe Coli: Public Domain

Mary Celeste was originally named Amazon; painting, with inscription "Amazon of Parrsboro. J.N. Parker, Commander, entering Marseilles, Nov'b'r 1861," depicts the carvel-built brigantine, then under the command of John "Jack" Nutting Parker (Amazon's second captain; June 19, 1861-1863); artist possibly attributed as Joseph Honoré Maxime Pellegrin (1793-1869), French maritime artist and ship portraitist, by Paul Begg in Mary Celeste: The Greatest Mystery of the Sea (2007: page 18): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Celeste_as_Amazon_in_1861.jpg

For further information:

Marriner, Derdriu. "Mary Celeste: Atlantic Mystery at Gibraltar on December 13, 1872." Wizzley > Culture and Society > History > US History. Nov. 29, 2014.
Available @ https://wizzley.com/mary-celeste-atlantic-mystery-at-gibraltar-on-december-13-1872/

Marriner, Derdriu. "Mary Celeste: Atlantic Mystery in the Azores Between November 24 and 25, and December 4 and 5, 1872." Wizzley > Culture and Society > History > US History. Nov. 7, 2014.
Available @ https://wizzley.com/mary-celeste-atlantic-mystery-in-the-azores-between-november-24-and-25-and-december-4-and-5-1872/

Marriner, Derdriu. "Mary Celeste: Atlantic Mystery Unresolved by Court Hearings of December 18, 1872 to March 14, 1873." Wizzley > Culture and Society > History > US History. Dec. 13, 2014.
Available @ https://wizzley.com/mary-celeste-atlantic-mystery-unresolved-by-court-hearings-of-december-18-1872-to-march-14-1873/

Marriner, Derdriu. "Mary Celeste: One Hundred Forty Second Anniversary of the Sailing of the Ship in November 1872." Wizzley > Culture and Society > History > US History. Nov. 6, 2014.
Available @ https://wizzley.com/mary-celeste-one-hundred-forty-second-anniversary-of-the-sailing-of-the-ship-in-november-1872/

Marriner, Derdriu. "Mary Celeste: One Hundred Thirtieth Anniversary of Shipwrecking on January 3rd or 4th 1885." Wizzley > Culture and Society > History > US History. Jan. 5, 2015.
Available @ https://wizzley.com/mary-celeste-one-hundred-thirtieth-anniversary-of-shipwrecking-on-january-3rd-or-4th-1885/