Whitehall Containing Bloody Shirt and Signs of Blood -- May 27, 2015

The drawing is from the 29-January-1901 San Francisco Call. William A Coulter did many maritime drawings for the newspaper. San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad ferry Tiburon sailed on San Francisco Bay from 1894 to 1924. Whitehall boats were a popular type of rowboat used for commercial purposes.   The painter is the boat's bow line.  Click on the image for a larger view.

ANOTHER BAY MYSTERY IS BEING WORKED UP ON THE WATER FRONT

Whitehall Containing Bloody Shirt and Signs of Blood on the Gunwale Found Derelict by the Crew of the Ferry Steamer Tiburon Off the End of Alcatraz.

THERE Is another mystery on the water front. A Whitehall boat with the painter coiled up and containing a demijohn of whisky and part of a bloody shirt, and with blood stains on the thwarts and other signs of. a struggle, was picked up by the ferry steamer Tiburon yesterday. Captain White of the ferry, steamer has no theory to advance about the abandoned boat, but whoever can prove ownership can have her on application at the Tiburon ferry.
The Tiburon left here on her usual morning run yesterday, and when just north of Alcatraz the derelict Whitehall was sighted. Captain White at once stopped the ferry steamer and ordered one of the lifeboats cleared away.

"There was plenty of whisky and considerable blood in the boat," said the captain yesterday. "There was a piece of a bloody shirt lying in the bottom of the Whitehall which looked to have been torn from somebody's back in a row. We took the boat in tow and she is now at Tiburon awaiting an owner. We do not know who owns her, but I think some of the boys along the water front will report a boat missing to-day. It looks to me as though somebody had gone out fishing and left the boat insecurely fastened. She then drifted away. The blood may be fish blood, but there were no fish in the boat.  If there was a row then the rest of the story is yet to be told."