1,700 Barrels Beneath a Two-Year-Old

Name: 1,700 Barrels Beneath a Two-Year-Old
Genre: Documentary

Before the Mary Celeste became a ghost ship, it was a noisy floating home carrying a captain's young family toward Italy.

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Transcript

The Mary Celeste was found with its lifeboat missing—but still floating.
December 4th, 1872, ship was found adrift near the Azores.
None of the 10 people aboard would ever be seen again.
Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs sailed with wife Sarah and two-year-old Sophia.
Briggs took his wife and infant daughter on the Genoa voyage. His school-aged son Arthur stayed home with his grandmother.
Arthur was not among the 10 people aboard.
Mary Celeste carried 1,701 barrels industrial alcohol.
Sarah complained about the thumping and bumping of the alcohol cargo.
A strong headwind and thick weather forced Mary Celeste to anchor near New York.
On November 7th, the ship sailed for Genoa with a fair wind.
The voyage carried enough food and water for six months.
At 5 a.m. November 25th, last log entry noted 8 knots near Santa Maria.
When boarded, 3.5 feet of water sloshed in the ship's bottom.
One of the Mary Celeste's two pumps had been disassembled. The scene leaves a question hanging in the dark.
Before disappearing, Sarah described their quarters in a letter. It was our little home.
Sarah's November 7th letter was the last word from anyone aboard.
If that letter was ordinary, the silence afterward wasn't.

Sarah's November 7 letter became the last word ever received from any of the ten people aboard.

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