"A Weird Sea Tale" From 1822
The Deep Mystery of an Abandoned Ship and Its Missing Crew.
The following is a story about a ghost ship found in 1822 that was published in The Philipsburg Mail (Philipsburg, Mont.), on August 15, 1895.
One of the strongest stories about an abandoned ship comes from the Indian Ocean. In 1822 the British corvette Lizard was cruising off Ceylon [Sri Lanka]. A ship came in sight with all sail set, and making good speed through the water. The officers took a long look, and one said: “There is something wrong about that vessel. Her crojack is loose and flapping, and there is no man at the wheel. We had better run down to her.”
This was done, says the New York World, and when near it was seen that the ship had no crew, as there was no answer to the hail. When boarded there were no marks of trouble until, on raising a sail that was spread over the main hatch, the body of a man was found. He had been ironed to the lock-bars of the hatch cover, and had apparently been dead a week.
On going into the cabin the body of an elderly man was found. He had been stabbed to death. On examining the log-book it was on record that the ship was Spanish, from the Philippines, and named El Frey Antonio; but, strangely, the last entry was six weeks past, and spoke of abandoning the ship at a point a thousand miles away, bound for Malaga, Spain. She was left on the road to China. A pitcher of water on the table was intact. Could the vessel have come this long journey without meeting a storm, and how had the dead men got here? They had not been dead six weeks, and both were Lascars [East Indian sailor].
The Frey Antonio was taken into Madras [Chennai], the Spanish government notified, and their answer only made the mystery deeper. The ship had sailed from Celebes [Indonesia] more than a year before, with six Roman Catholic priests as passengers, bound for Spain, and had no Lascars among her crew. And this was all. And from that far away time until now the story of El Frey Antonio is one of the secrets of the deep.1
The Philipsburg mail, “A Weird Sea Tale: The Deep Mystery of an Abandoned Ship and Its Missing Crew,” Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. Of Congress, August 15, 1895, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025320/1895-08-15/ed-1/seq-1/.