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.
STRANDING OF THE BARGES
On the afternoon of April 3rd, 1915, the steam tug Mars, belonging to the Reading Railroad Company, left the harbor of Bangor, Maine, with three light barges bound to Philadelphia. The barges were the Tunnel Ridge, Coleraine and Manheim.
DECK HOUSE OF BARGE COLERAINE