Mary Celeste was launched in Nova Scotia in 1860. Her original name was "Amazon". She was 103 ft overall displacing 280 tons and listed as a half-brig. Over the next 10 years she was involved in several accidents at sea and passed thru a number of owners. Eventually she turned up at a New York salvage auction where she was purchased for $3,000. After extensive repairs she was put under American registry and renamed "Mary Celeste". The new captain of Mary Celeste was Benjamin Briggs, 37, a master with three previous commands. On November 7, 1872 the ship departed New York with Captain Briggs, his wife, young daughter and a crew of eight. The ship was cargoed with 1700 barrels of raw american alcohol bound for Genoa, Italy. The captain, his family and crew were never seen again. A British Board of Inquiry in Gibraltar gathered evidence and testimony from the boarding party that had discovered Mary Celeste as a drifting derelict. Lack of evidence of violence ruled out piracy or foul play, but no conclusions as to the fate of the mortals aboard was forthcoming. The real mystery did not begin until 1884 when Arthur Conan Doyle writing under a pseudonym published a story about a derelict ship called "Marie Celeste". This tale recounted the actual events of the Mary Celeste with enough added fictional and provocative detail to capture the public interest. Since then and to this day, no two accounts of the story are the same.