View source for Carroll A. Deering

{{Short description|Five-masted commercial schooner and ghost ship}}{{multiple issues|
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{{Infobox ship image
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| Ship caption = Schooner ''Carroll A. Deering'', as seen from the [[Cape Lookout, North Carolina|Cape Lookout]] lightship on January 28, 1921.
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{{Infobox ship career
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| Ship country = [[United States]]
| Ship flag = {{Shipboxflag|United States}}
| Ship name = ''Carroll A. Deering''
| Ship namesake = Carroll Atwood Deering (1882–1967)
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| Ship operator = G.G. Deering Company
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| Ship builder = G.G. Deering Company Yards, [[Bath, Maine]]
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| Ship laid down = 1918
| Ship launched = April 4, 1919<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117986934/five-master-launched-at-deering-yard-in/ |title=Five-master Launched at Deering Yard in Bath, ME |newspaper=[[The Boston Globe]] |page=13 |date=April 5, 1919 |accessdate=February 4, 2023 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref>
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| Ship completed = 1919
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| Ship out of service = January 31, 1921
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| Ship homeport = Bath, Maine, [[United States]]
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| Ship fate = Wrecked 1921
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| Ship tonnage = 1,879 tons
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| Ship tons burthen = 3500 tons
| Ship length = {{cvt|255|ft}}
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| Ship sail plan = Five-masted schooner
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| Ship boats = 2
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| Ship complement = 11
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'''''Carroll A. Deering''''' was an American five-masted commercial [[schooner]] launched in 1919 and found run aground [[Ghost ship|without its crew]] off [[Cape Hatteras]], [[North Carolina]], in January 1921.<ref>{{cite web |title=Carroll A. Deering - The Ghost Ship |url=https://www.bermuda-attractions.com/bermuda2_00018e.htm |website=Bermuda Attractions}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=July 2021}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Walker |first=Malea |date=2023-01-31 |title=The Mysterious Disappearance of Ghost Ship Carroll A. Deering's Crew {{!}} Headlines & Heroes |url=https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2023/01/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-ghost-ship-carroll-a-deerings-crew |access-date=2024-02-07 |website=The Library of Congress}}</ref>

==Overview==
The ''Carroll A. Deering'' was built in [[Bath, Maine]], in 1919 by the [[G.G. Deering Company]] for commercial use. The owner of the company named the ship after his son. One of the last large commercial sailing vessels, the ship was designed to carry cargo and had been in service for a year when it began its final voyage to [[Rio de Janeiro]], Brazil.

==''Carroll A. Deering''{{'}}s last voyage==
On July 19, 1920, the ''Carroll A. Deering'' sailed from [[Puerto Rico]], and arrived at [[Newport News]] to pick up a cargo of coal for delivery to [[Rio de Janeiro]]. The ship was captained by William H. Merritt, a hero of [[World War I]] who had been cited for bravery under fire for saving his entire crew when his previous command, the Deering-built five-masted schooner {{ship||Dorothy B. Barrett}}, [[List of shipwrecks in August 1918#14 August|was sunk]] by the [[Imperial Germany|German]] submarine {{SMU|U-117||2}} off [[Cape May, New Jersey]] in 1918. Merritt's son, Sewall, was his first mate and had a ten-man crew made up entirely of [[Scandinavia]]ns (mostly Danes). On August 26, 1920, the ''Carroll A. Deering'' cleared the [[Virginia Capes]] bound for Brazil, but Captain Merritt soon fell seriously ill and the schooner turned back and put into the port of [[Lewes, Delaware]] to drop off Merritt and his son. The Deering Company recruited Captain Willis B. Wormell, a retired 66-year-old veteran sea captain, to replace him on the voyage to Brazil. Charles B. McLellan was hired on as first mate.

The ''Carroll A. Deering,'' with Wormell in command, set sail for Rio de Janeiro on September 8, 1920, arriving there and delivering its cargo without incident. Wormell gave his crew leave and met with a Captain Goodwin, an old friend who captained another cargo vessel that was docked in the port. Wormell spoke of his crew with disdain, though he claimed to trust the engineer, Herbert Bates, with whom Goodwin was also acquainted.<ref name="graveyard">[http://www.graveyardoftheatlantic.com/806-2/ Graveyard of the Atlantic page.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160406162658/http://www.graveyardoftheatlantic.com/806-2/ |date=2016-04-06 }}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=July 2021}} The ''Carroll A. Deering'' left Rio de Janeiro on December 2, 1920, and stopped for supplies at [[Barbados]]. First Mate McLellan got drunk in town and complained to Captain Hugh Norton of ''Snow'' that he could not discipline the crew without Wormell interfering, and that he had to do all the navigation owing to Wormell's poor eyesight.<ref name="Bland">{{citation| title=Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals: The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering | first=Bland | last= Simpson | publisher = UNC Press | year= 2005 | isbn= 978-0-8078-5617-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9JuNcIrkjx8C&pg=PA56|pages=55–7}}</ref> Later, Captain Norton, his first mate, and another captain were in the Continental Café and heard McLellan say, "I'll get the captain before we get to Norfolk, I will."<ref name="Bland" /> McLellan was arrested in a drunken state, but on January 9 Wormell forgave him, bailed him out of jail, and set sail for [[Hampton Roads]].<ref>Bland (2005) p. 60</ref>

The ship was next sighted by the [[Cape Lookout, North Carolina|Cape Lookout]] [[Lightvessel|lightship]] off North Carolina on January 28, 1921, when the ''Carroll A. Deering'' hailed it. The lightship's keeper, Captain Jacobson, reported that a tall thin man with reddish hair and a foreign accent speaking through a megaphone told him the vessel had lost its anchors in a storm off [[Cape Fear (region)|Cape Fear]] and asked that the ship's owners, the G.G. Deering Company, be notified. Jacobson took note of this, but his radio was out, so he was unable to report it. He also noticed that the crew seemed to be "milling around" on the [[quarterdeck]] of the ship, an area where they were usually not allowed. The following afternoon, the crew of another vessel transiting the area spotted the schooner sailing a course that would take it directly onto the [[Diamond Shoals]]. They, however, saw no one on the ship's decks and did not attempt to hail the vessel, assuming her crew would spot the [[Cape Hatteras Lighthouse]] or the [[Diamond Shoals Lightship]] and change course to avoid wrecking on the shoals.<ref name="historicalblindness.com">{{Cite web|url=http://www.historicalblindness.com/blogandpodcast//the-carroll-a-deering-ghost-ship-of-cape-hatteras|title = The Carroll A. Deering, Ghost Ship of Cape Hatteras| date=9 January 2018 }}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=July 2021}}

==The wreck==
[[File:Carroll A. Deering article 01-Feb-1921.jpg|thumb|Article in the ''[[Arkansas Gazette]]'' of February 1, 1921]]
On January 31, 1921, the ''Carroll A. Deering'' was sighted at dawn by surfman C. P. Brady who was on lookout duty at the [[United States Coast Guard]] station at [[Cape Hatteras]]. The vessel was hard aground with all sails set on the outer edge of Diamond Shoals. The shoals that extend offshore from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina were notorious as a common site of shipwrecks for centuries and are known as the "[[Graveyard of the Atlantic]]." Rescue ships were unable to approach the vessel owing to bad weather. The ship was not boarded until February 4, after being battered by the surf for several days, and it became clear that the schooner had been completely abandoned. Her steering equipment was found to be damaged, with the wheel shattered, the [[binnacle]] box stove in, and the [[rudder]] disengaged from its stock.<ref name="historicalblindness.com"/> The ship's log and navigation equipment were gone, along with the crew's personal effects and the ship's two [[Lifeboat (shipboard)|lifeboats]]. In the vessel's [[Galley (kitchen)|galley]] it appeared that certain foodstuffs were being prepared for the next day's meal at the time of the abandonment. The Coast Guard cutter {{USCGC|Manning}} attempted to salvage ''Carroll A. Deering'', but found this impossible. The vessel was declared a hazard to navigation, and was destroyed using [[dynamite]] on March 4 to prevent it from becoming a danger to other vessels.

A portion of the ship's bow later drifted ashore on [[Ocracoke, North Carolina|Ocracoke Island]].  Wooden timbers from the wreck also washed ashore on Hatteras Island, and were used by local residents to build houses.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.southernliving.com/culture/carroll-a-deering-ghost-ship-of-the-outer-banks|title = The Unsolved Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering, the Outer Banks' Most Famous Ghost Ship}}</ref>

===Message in a bottle===
On April 11, 1921, a local fisherman claimed to have found a [[message in a bottle]] floating in the waters off the beach of [[Buxton, North Carolina]];<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117985621/pirate-raid-on-the-deering-turns-out-a-h/ |title=Pirate Raid on the Deering Turns Out a Hermit's Joke |newspaper=[[New York Herald]] |date=August 26, 1921 |accessdate=February 4, 2023 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref> he swiftly turned it over to the authorities. The text of the message was as follows:

<blockquote>
DEERING CAPTURED BY OIL BURNING BOAT SOMETHING LIKE CHASER. TAKING OFF EVERYTHING HANDCUFFING CREW. CREW HIDING ALL OVER SHIP NO CHANCE TO MAKE ESCAPE. FINDER PLEASE NOTIFY HEADQUARTERS DEERING.
</blockquote>

The handwriting in the letter was identified as that of the ship's engineer, Henry Bates,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117985476/mystery-in-the-disappearance-of-3-coast/ |title=Mystery in the Disappearance of 3 Coast Ships and a Schooner Crew |agency=[[Associated Press]] |newspaper=[[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]] |date=June 21, 1921 |accessdate=February 4, 2023 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref> by the widow of Captain Wormell, and the bottle was proven to have been manufactured in Brazil. This, along with a sighting of a "mysterious" [[Steamship|steamer]] that arrived at the Cape Lookout lightship in the wake of ''Carroll A. Deering'', suggested hostile action. The captain of the lightship had attempted to hail the steamer to get its crew to relay the message from the ''Carroll A. Deering'' but the steamer failed to respond and he could not make out the ship's name, as the crew had unfurled a canvas to cover the nameplate.<ref>Bland (2005) p. 64</ref>

The message also raised skepticism: if a crew member did manage to get hold of paper, pen, and bottle and write a letter, why would he request that the company be notified, as opposed to the police or Coast Guard? Handwriting experts concluded later that the message was forged, and, after further questioning by federal agents, the fisherman admitted to the forgery.<ref>Bland (2005) pp. 176–179</ref> Gray apparently forged the note in hopes that the publicity he would garner from finding it would help him secure employment at the Cape Hatteras light station.

==Investigation==
The U.S. government launched an extensive investigation into the disappearance of the crew of the ''Carroll A. Deering''. Five departments of the government — [[U.S. Department of Commerce|Commerce]], [[U.S. Department of the Treasury|Treasury]], [[U.S. Department of Justice|Justice]], [[U.S. Navy|Navy]], and [[U.S. Department of State|State]] — looked into the case. [[Herbert Hoover]], then [[Secretary of Commerce]], was intrigued by the fact that several other vessels of various nationalities — most notably the sulfur freighter {{SS|Hewitt||2}} — had also disappeared in roughly the same area. Although most of these vessels were later revealed to have been sailing in the vicinity of a series of particularly powerful [[hurricane]]s, the ''Hewitt'' and ''Carroll A. Deering'' were proven to have been sailing away from the area of the storm at the time. Hoover's assistant, [[Lawrence Ritchey]], was placed in charge of the investigation. Ritchey tried to chart what happened to the vessel between its last sighting at Cape Lookout and its running aground at Diamond Shoals by reading the log books of the Coast Guard lightships stationed in those areas.

When an Italian inquiry into the disappearance of the vessel ''Monte San Michele'' confirmed that there had been strong hurricanes in the vicinity, mutiny was then accepted as the explanation for the ''Carroll A. Deering'' incident.{{clarify|date=February 2023|reason=Unclear why confirmation of hurricane as a cause for one vessel being lost, leads to mutiny as the cause for a different disappearance.}} The investigation was closed in late 1922 without an official finding on the incident.

===Theories===
The following theories were considered by the U.S. government in its investigation:

* Hurricanes: The U.S. government, particularly the [[National Weather Bureau]], strongly advocated a series of powerful hurricanes known to have been raging in the Atlantic as the cause of the disappearances. As mentioned above, however, both the ''Deering'' and the ''Hewitt'' were heading away from the path of these storms. In any case, several authors, including [[Larry Kusche]] and [[Richard Winer]], have pointed out that the state of the ship indicates an orderly rather than panicked evacuation.
* [[Piracy]]: Captain O. W. Parker of the United States Marine Shipping Board certainly believed piracy responsible; he stated that, in his opinion, "Piracy without a doubt still exists as it has since the days of the [[Phoenicia]]ns". Captain Wormell's widow was a particularly strong advocate of this theory. It was believed that a group of pirates were responsible for the various disappearances; however, no real evidence of this theory emerged, and no suspected pirates were ever caught.
* Russian/[[Communism|Communist]] piracy: During a police raid on the headquarters of the [[United Russian Workers Party]] (a [[Communist]] organization) in [[New York City]], officers allegedly found papers that called on members of the organization to seize American ships and sail them to the [[Soviet Union]]. This was widely believed to be relevant to the ''Carroll A. Deering'' incident at the time, particularly by hardline anti-communists in the government. However, no evidence has surfaced that any of these allegedly planned activities were actually carried out.
* Rum runners: A similar speculation to the above speculates that a group of liquor [[smuggle]]rs working out of the [[Bahamas]] stole the ship to use as a [[rum-running]] vessel (this was during the [[Prohibition era]]). The ''Carroll A. Deering'' was large enough, according to Richard Winer's ''Ghost Ships'', to carry roughly a million dollars' worth of liquor in her hold. On the other hand, it is doubtful that such a conspicuous, easily identifiable and comparatively slow vessel would constitute a choice target for smugglers. No evidence supporting this speculation has ever emerged.
* [[Mutiny]]: Wormell's known conflict with his first mate and derisive comments towards his crew while in Rio de Janeiro suggested that something may have been amiss between the captain and his men on the voyage. Captain Jacobson at Cape Lookout certainly thought it odd; the man who hailed his vessel was definitely ''not'' Captain Wormell, and he was not an officer by all accounts. Senator [[Frederick Hale (US senator)|Frederick Hale]] of Maine advocated this theory, stating it was "a plain case of mutiny". Discontent with the captain could certainly have caused a mutiny of the crew, but once again, nothing definitive has ever been proven.

==Aftermath==
No official explanation for the disappearance of the crew of the ''Carroll A. Deering'' was ever offered. In September 1955, the remaining hull of the ''Carroll A. Deering'' was moved about {{convert|9|mile|km}} by [[Hurricane Ione]], from Ocracoke Island to [[Hatteras, North Carolina|Hatteras]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117987829/hattaras-ghose-ship-on-voyage-in-hurric/ |title=Hattaras Ghose Ship: On Voyage in Hurricane |newspaper=[[The News & Observer]] |location=[[Raleigh, North Carolina]] |page=1 |date=September 23, 1955 |accessdate=February 4, 2023 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref>

Carrol A. Deering, for whom the ship was named, died in March 1967, aged 84.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117987299/namesake-of-bath-built-ghost-ship-deeri/ |title=Namesake of Bath-Built Ghost Ship 'Deering' Dies |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |newspaper=[[Evening Express (Portland, Maine)|Evening Express]] |location=[[Portland, Maine]] |page=15 |date=March 14, 1967 |accessdate=February 4, 2023 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref>

{{as of|2016|4}}, the [[ship's bell]] and [[capstan (nautical)|capstan]] from the ''Carrol A. Deering'' were on display at the [[Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum]] in Hatteras.<ref name="graveyard" />

==See also==
{{Portal|1920s|Transport|United States}}
*[[List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea]]
{{clear}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
*"Piracy Suspected In Disappearance Of 3 American Ships," ''New York Times'', June 21, 1921.
*"Bath Owners Skeptical," ''New York Times'', June 22, 1921.
*"Deering Skipper's Wife Caused Investigation," ''New York Times'', June 22, 1921.
*"More Ships Added To Mystery List," ''New York Times'', June 22, 1921.
*"Hunt On For Pirates," ''Washington Post'', June 21, 1921
*"Comb Seas For Ships," ''Washington Post'', June 22, 1921.
*"Port Of Missing Ships Claims 3000 Yearly," ''Washington Post'', July 10, 1921.
*''Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals, The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering'' (2002), [[Bland Simpson]]
*''[[Lo!]]'' (1931), [[Charles Fort]] - {{ISBN|1-870870-89-1}}
*''Invisible Horizons'' (1965), [[Vincent Gaddis]]
*''[[The Bermuda Triangle (book)|The Bermuda Triangle]]'' (1974), [[Charles Berlitz]]
*''The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved'' (1975), [[Larry Kusche]] - {{ISBN|0-87975-971-2}}
*''Ghost Ships'' (2000), [[Richard Winer]]

==External links==
{{commons category|Carroll A. Deering (ship, 1919)|Carroll A. Deering}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160406162658/http://www.graveyardoftheatlantic.com/806-2/ C.A. Deering], ''Graveyard of the Atlantic''.

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{{1921 shipwrecks}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Deering, Carroll A.}}
[[Category:1919 ships]]
[[Category:1920s missing person cases]]
[[Category:Ghost ships]]
[[Category:Individual sailing vessels]]
[[Category:Maritime incidents in 1921]]
[[Category:Missing ships]]
[[Category:Bermuda Triangle]]
[[Category:Schooners of the United States]]
[[Category:Shipwrecks of the Carolina coast]]
[[Category:Five-masted ships]]
[[Category:Maritime incidents in the United States]]
[[Category:Missing person cases in North Carolina]]
[[Category:Ships built in Bath, Maine]]