New Britain herald., 1928-01-11
In Los. of Schooner and Captain
 Is Seen Retribution of the Sea
Captain Bram, Freed From Atanta Through Influence
 of Mary Roberts Rinehard, Believed to Have Gone to Watery Grave 30 Years After Crime of Which He Was Convicted.

Portland. Me. Jan. II M-A
 Cape Hatteras gale seemed today ts
 have swallowed up Captain Thoma.
 M. Bram. who 30 years ago was sen.
 fenced to hang for triple murder
 With him apparently had vanish.
 ed his four masted schooner. the
 Alvena. ship with 2 history al-
 most as curious as her slippers.
 The lumber laden craft bound from Jacksonville. Fla, to this port, was last spoken on Sunday when in distress. Since then coast guard cutters have failed to find trace of it.
 Today old timers were recalling the man who back in 1896 was con- vtctsd at Boston of the murders of Captain Nash of the barkentine Herbert Fuller, Nashs wife, and his second mate.
 Retribution of the Sea They were cextain he and the master of the Alvena were one and they spoke in hushed voices of what they saw as the retribution of the sea for one of the most atrocious murders in memory.
 Little hope they held that schoon- CT or skipper would ever reach this port.
 It was in 1898 that the Herbert Fuller was bound from Halifax for South America and Bram was member of her crew. One morning horrifed sailors discovered the axe battered bodies of the two ships officers and that of Mrs. Nash.
 Charles Brown, the man at the wheel. was accused by Bram and promptly put in irons. Not long aft erward Bram was detected in the act of removing the missing axe from beneath deck boat and took Browns place in the ships hold.
 The ship was turned about and with nag at half staff and the bodies of the three victims being lowed in : small boat she put back to port.
 Bram was taken under guard to Boston where in the same year q federal jury convicted him and he was sentenced to be hanged. At a second trial, however. he escaped with sentence of life imprisonment at Atlanta.
 Finally h Released
 Years later Mary Roberts Rine- hart wove into novel the story of the murder and. having become in- terested in the former sailor. she visited him and through her efforts President Taft was persuaded to grant . parole which was later made . pardon by President Wilson.
 The freed slayer opened | bar at Atlanta for . time and rumor had it that hs accumulated . small for tune but the lure of tho sea was strong and he became interested in the purchase of schooners.
 Tho Alvena was one of these. She and her sister ship, the Irene, were known in . thousand ports of call on both sides of the Pacific. But 'team. electricity and oil doomed \ hem inevitably to the graveyard of 'hips and for years they routed in he mud of . west coast harbor.
 In 1925. however. both were rais- d and relltted and in December of II hat year they stood out from Aber- leen. Wash.,. in . handicap race for Miami. Fla, and the building boom. Zach carried a cargo of lumber. III They should have made Miami in 0 days. What happened Is history. days after leaving port, he Alvena limped into Balboa, bat cred by | tunsle with the clements hat lasted to the South Seas and ack. The aged craft had been passed by storms. becalmed by dol rums and pelted alternately by ain and snow. Her sails were tat