The Mary Celeste was an American merchant vessel famous for having been discovered on 5 December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean, unmanned and apparently abandoned (the one lifeboat was missing, along with its crew of eight and two passengers), although the weather was fine and her crew were experienced and capable seamen. The story has found its way into the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others

When found derelict, Mary Celeste was in seaworthy condition and still under sail, heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. She had been at sea for a month and had more than six months’ worth of food and water on board. Her cargo was virtually untouched and the crew’s personal belongings, including valuables, were still in place. None of those on board were ever seen or heard from again, and their disappearance often is cited as the greatest maritime mystery of all time.

Summarized from Mysteries and Murders.

^{By Unconfirmed, possibly Honore Pellegrin (1800–c.1870). This speculative attribution is suggested in Paul Begg: Mary Celeste: The Greatest Mystery of the Sea. Longmans Education Ltd, Harlow (UK)2007. Plate 2 – Scanned from Slate magazine, December 6 2011, PublicDomain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=562219}

^{{{PD-old-100}}– for works in the public domain because their copyright has expired in countries and areas copyrighting works for life plus 100 years or less.}