Who killed Billy Elliott? The question haunted Bangor for decades. Over the years there were many suspects, but by the summer of 1907, 28 years after the event, only two contenders stood at the center of the debate still raging in the Queen City’s daily newspapers.

Was it Sam D. Haynes, one of the most notorious criminals of the era? Or was it a particular boardinghouse proprietor on Bangor’s waterfront, as claimed by a milkman? A century ago the Bangor Daily Commercial favored Haynes. But the milkman’s story was getting a good deal of play as well thanks to a crusading editor at the Bangor Daily News.

William B. Elliott, age 36, was on his way home to Glenburn on the evening of Feb. 5, 1879, after delivering a load of firewood to Bangor. The Civil War veteran was also Glenburn’s tax collector so it was rumored he might have been carrying a larger amount of money than he had made selling wood.

Elliott’s body was found beside the road on outer Valley Avenue just above the Stetson Mill. Meanwhile, a man driving Elliott’s team at great speed down Exchange Street turned the reins over to a passer-by and dashed into the railroad station. An ax covered with blood and hair and a horse blanket soaked with blood were found in the back of Elliott’s sled. Witnesses later said they had seen Elliott leaving town with a hitchhiker riding on the back.

Sam D. Haynes was living in Bangor at the time of the murder, recruiting people to help him start a “roadhouse” near Rockland. He had been imprisoned twice by this time in his young life for acts of thievery, and he was known as a tough customer. A few months after the Elliott killing, Haynes was arrested in Rockland for breaking into a store. While he was awaiting trial, he killed James P. Robbins, a Rockland policeman who was guarding him. He struck Robbins over the head with a stove poker, just as someone had struck Elliott in the head with an ax. Haynes was sentenced to life in prison for murder.

Twenty-eight years later, during the summer of 1907, Haynes was seeking a pardon for the second time. He wasn’t the same man he’d been at age 23, he said. He’d become a Christian. He should have been convicted of manslaughter, not murder, because he never intended to kill Patrolman Robbins.

In Bangor, residents were still asking, “Who killed Billy Elliott?” Many of them thought it was Haynes. A story that Haynes killed Elliott had begun circulating in 1885. Before committing suicide in that year, John Lyons, a saloonkeeper, told a friend it was Haynes who had hitched a ride on Elliott’s sled the night of the murder. Lyons said Haynes and Elliott had been having a drink in Lyons’ saloon on Central Street. Lyons made what he thought was a harmless comment to Haynes that Elliott was Glenburn’s tax collector and he carried a lot of money. Just then Elliott pulled out a wallet that appeared to be stuffed full.

Elliott left and Haynes followed him out the door, said Lyons. Elliott stopped at a store to buy some grain. Several witnesses saw a man riding with him on the back of the sled. Lyons, who had left his saloon to walk home, said he was one of the witnesses and the man was Haynes, but he failed to warn the unsuspecting Elliott. “I felt that I in a way had been the cause of the crime,” Lyons told his friend before his suicide.

Lyons’ story remained in the realm of unpublished gossip until 1889 when a Boston reporter got hold of it and interviewed the friend. The story created a great sensation, convincing many people that Haynes was the killer. Thus, the news in the spring of 1907 that Haynes was asking the governor and his executive council to release him from prison caused an uproar that is almost unimaginable today.

The Bangor Daily Commercial led the opposition to the pardon in central Maine. The names of 80 prominent Bangor and Brewer residents who had signed a petition opposing Haynes’ release were published in the newspaper on June 4, 1907. Besides J.P. Bass, the Commercial’s publisher, they included the names of the mayors of Bangor and Brewer plus three ex-mayors. Haynes also had powerful supporters, said the Bangor Daily News, including Sen. William P. Frye and the Rev. Robert Codman, bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Maine.

The pardon hearing was conducted on June 13 in Augusta. Haynes had never been charged with the Elliott murder, but his lawyers still made an effort to disassociate him from the crime and the public outcry it had produced in Bangor. One of those summoned to testify was Lawrence T. Smyth, city editor of the Bangor Daily News. In a detailed story in his newspaper on Dec. 28, 1901, Smyth had speculated that the killer was a man other than Haynes.

Years ago Smyth’s milkman had told him that early one morning while making his rounds down by the waterfront he had overheard the wife of the proprietor of a sailors’ boardinghouse accusing her drunken, abusive husband of having killed Elliott. The husband had come in after the crime covered in blood. She threatened to go to the police if he didn’t mend his ways. The man made no denials, according to the milkman, who Smyth believed was an impeccable source.

All the principals in the story – the man and his wife and the milkman – had since died. Smyth declined to divulge their names, but he was so convinced of the story that by 1907 his newspaper was ridiculing the Haynes theory as a fable constructed out of barroom gossip.

The Executive Council voted 4-3 on July 9 against releasing Haynes. He received more support, however, than he had two years before at his previous pardon hearing when the vote was 5-2 against, said the Bangor Daily News. Haynes did better still six years later. He was pardoned in 1913.

Today, Elliott’s marble gravestone stands blackened by time at the back of the South Branch Cemetery in Levant. Elliott was “killed by the hand of an assassin,” it says, using one of the harshest words possible, as if asking the casual visitor to this lonely spot to try one more time to solve the case.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangor

dailynews.net. Dick Shaw contributed information to this column.