Career
He is famous today for being the Captain of the merchant ship when she was discovered unmanned and drifting in the Atlantic Ocean near the Straits of Gibraltar, on December 4, 1872. The lifeboat was missing, yet the herself was still under sail and there were signs of a sudden and unexplained abandonment. The Briggs family of Massachusetts had a long maritime connection, and Benjamin Briggs himself spent most of his life at sea.
He was an experienced, hardy and able seaman.
He reportedly was respected by those who served under him because of his fairness and ability. He worked his way to eventually become a master mariner.
Briggs captained the brigantine Sea Foam, and in 1862 became master of the three-masted schooner Forest King. Benjamin Briggs was devoutly religious and a believer in abstinence.
The newlyweds sailed to Europe in Benjamin"s schooner Forest King.
Their son, Arthur South. Briggs, was born in 1865 at the family home at Rose Cottage, Marion, Massachusetts. In 1872, however, Benjamin Briggs bought a share in the brigantine, owned by James Winchester, and made modifications to the cabin to house his family. The following month Briggs" ship was found inexplicably abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean near the Straits of Gibraltar.
Their fate remains a mystery.
A cenotaph memorializing the family stands in Evergreen Cemetery, Marion, Massachusetts. Lost in Brigadier November 1872"
Benjamin Spooner Briggs is the main protagonist in the game Limbo of the Lost, in which Briggs must solve puzzles to escape Limbo.
