Mary Celestia, The

DESCRIPTION: "The Mary Celeste she runned ashore, She _did_, she _did_, She'll never run the block no more, No more, no more!"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1890 (JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Bolton)
KEYWORDS: Civilwar crime commerce sea ship wreck
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Sep 9, 1864 - "The blockade running steamer Mary Celestia, from Wilmington, N.C., via Bermuda, for Nassau, sunk off the south of Bermuda" (_The Troy (NY) Daily Whig_ (Sep. 15, 1864)). The cargo was munitions and bacon (Northern Shipwrecks Database))
FOUND IN: Bermuda
REFERENCES (1 citation):
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, H. Carrington Bolton, "Gombay, a Festal Rite of Bermudian Negroes", Vol. 3, No. 10 (Jul-Sep 1890), p. 224, "The Mary Celeste" (1 text)
NOTES [126 words]: The description is all of Bolton's text.
Writing in 1890, Bolton says, "About twenty-five years ago an old negro rejoicing in the soubriquet of 'Blind Isaac' used to go about the islands from house to house in quest of copper coins, and singing songs of his own composition ;... During the years 1862-64, when exciting and profitable ventures in blockade-running made the port of St. George a scene of great activity, Blind Isaac used to sing about a vessel that was wrecked on the south shore: - 'The Mary Celeste ...' emphasizing the sentiment by striking the ground at each did with a thick stick.
The Mary Celestia is one of Bermuda's popular SCUBA wreck-diving sites. It is not the Mary Celeste found deserted in the Azores; that was in 1872. - BS
Last updated in version 5.3
File: JAFMaCel

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