WAS IT MURDER?
Tragedy stalks abroad on the great sea and land always, not only on the wide stretches of the great ocean but all along the bordering coasts and inlets.
A big ship sails away into the mists and fogs of the pulsing deep and never comes back, a fisherman pulls out in his little boat to draw his nets and drops as completely out of sight as though he had never been.
This little book tells of shipwrecks and disasters and in the same line we may note the passing of human life on the sea wherever it may be.
Mystery goes hand and hand with passing events on the ever restless waters.
The following little story is but one of many like it.
Mr. Eugene W. Haines was a much respected, active citizen of the town of Sandwich, Cape Cod. He had held many important offices in the town and was a member of the Board of Selectmen and engaged in several lines of business.
During the summer season he set a string of lobster pots in the bay. He owned a small power boat which he used in going to and from his lobster traps.
On the 19th of November, 1927, an hour or more before daylight, as was his custom, he sailed away in his boat to draw his lobster pots, and from that hour he was never seen again by those on shore who awaited his return.
For many days the waters of the bay were unruffled by any strong wind and the waters were smooth. When he did not return by mid-afternoon searching parties started out from many points and men patrolled the coast beaches from Provincetown to Plymouth, and boats dragged the nearby waters of the bay for many hours. Every foot of the coast beaches were covered but not a single trace was found of the missing man or his boat.
There was but one possible clue to this strange situation. A gang of rum runners had been operating in and about the bay for some time and some of them had been caught, and Mr. Haines had been instrumental in bringing some of them to trial and punishment.
The theory has been advanced and quite generally accepted that these law-breakers, holding a feeling of enmity against Haines, watched his daily going out in his boat until there came a time in which to get him.
It is generally believed that they overtook his boat, made him a prisoner, and took the boat in tow and then proceeded out in the sea miles from land, where they murdered their victim, weighted his body and dropped it to the bottom of the sea, then weighted and sank the boat and left no trace.
During the last week in November a man patrolling the shore came upon two oars and a few things such as are carried in fishing boats which were identified as having belonged to Haines’ boat. But this does not clear up the mystery of the lost fishing boat, and the how and where of the tragedy will ever remain, like many others, unsolved.
On the 20th of December portions of Haines power dory drifted ashore at Sandwich.
