The following was submitted by Steve Seidman.

In 1976, I was attending college and working at a law firm in the mailroom. I was subsequently asked to become the firm's "file destructor," as no file had been destroyed since the mid 1800s. In that capacity, I came across a file from 1913 that had amazing letterhead from luxury hotels from Europe and the US, along with several telegrams. They piqued my interest. I received permission to write a short story, but I did nothing with it until 40 years later. I plugged the names from that file into a Google search and, for the past three years, have been obsessed with what I found.

I am now writing a book about Spencer Bull, an American World War I soldier who served in Paris, and remained there working as a journalist until his death in 1936. He was infamous for his antics, and was written about by such luminaries as James Thurber and James Michener. During my research, I came across a few newspaper articles regarding the murder of Melrose native Harold A. Whitman, who at the time of his death was engaged to Nina Bull, who was still married to her first husband, Spencer Bull. Although my book is about Spencer, I felt compelled to remember and celebrate Harold Whitman on the anniversary of his death.

On Sept. 2, 1917, in Somerville, 31-year-old Harold A. Whitman of Melrose was found clubbed into unconsciousness on a reedy dump near the Mystic River. His straw hat lay nearby. Whitman never regained consciousness and died the next day.

Harold Whitman was born and raised in a well-established Melrose family. He was a lover of outdoor sports and excelled in tennis. His father, Alonzo Garcelon Whitman, in his role as high school principal, oversaw the education of decades of Melrose teens.

Bright and successful, Harold entered Harvard College and graduated near the top of his class in 1906. After Harvard, he worked as a chemist, then took a position with the US Food Administration, whose purpose, before our entry into the Great War, was to provide food to Europe where farmers and farmland had been destroyed. A few years later, having earned a reputation for integrity, he was hired by Stanley Faithfull, general manager of the Atlantic Chemical Company. All this while, Harold Whitman remained single.

Why was an up-and-coming professional man beaten to near death and left to die at a dump? What had he been doing in that part of town? The area was frequented by drunks and misfits, and it was dangerous. Two other bodies were found in the same area within 10 days of his beating. Who had a motive to kill him, and so brutally?

The young man who discovered his body was referred to as the "Italian" by local authorities. Police opined that the assault was perpetrated by highwaymen intent on robbery. Even his parents believed that he had been hanging around with the wrong people in the wrong part of town. Harold’s pocket watch was missing, as was a large sum of money. However, there was $3.60 left in one pocket, and more than a dozen love letters in another.

The District Attorney abandoned the robbery angle and stated that it would not have been necessary for a thug to have crushed a man’s skull in order to steal but a few bucks, and, since some money was still found on Harold, "a real robber would have seen to it that he secured all the pay for his pains."

The letters were traced to Nina Bull, who lived in Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Vir. A blonde of striking appearance and of medium height, she was private secretary to Ida M. Tarbell, a well-known suffragette and muckraker. She and Harold had met two years earlier, and Nina maintained that she was in the process of obtaining a divorce from her long-estranged husband, and that she and Harold were to marry as soon as that occurred. In the letters, Nina was already calling herself "Mrs. Whitman" and referring to Harold as her "darling husband."

She adamantly denied that she and Harold had secretly wed. Harold’s brother Arthur H. Whitman said the family liked Nina and was pleased with Harold’s choice, and that these references were merely those of people in love exchanging terms of endearment. Nina, who was prostrate with grief over the death of her fiancé, was quickly eliminated as a suspect in the murder.

But what about Nina’s estranged husband? Although she asserted that she had no interest in him and had had no contact with him, she had filed an application in New York court and received an award of alimony. Her husband was not too happy with the prospect of having to pay Nina anything. Nonetheless, Nina’s husband was never investigated. He enlisted with the Third Army three months later, left for Europe, and stayed there until his death in 1936. Nina obtained her divorce out of Alexandria, Virginia in February 1918.

On Sept. 6, 1917, at 2 o’clock on a bright and warm afternoon, Harold Whitman was buried at Wyoming Cemetery following a service at the family’s Melrose home at 23 Hillside Ave. Nina wore a simple black taffeta dress and a broad-brimmed hat with a single black bow. Rev. Thomas Simms of the First Congregational Church officiated, and Grace Bradbury sang "In Heaven Love Abiding" and "Upward Where the Stars Are Burning"

In 1931, 14 years after Harold’s death, someone named Starr Faithfull was found floating off a beach on Long Island. Police suggested she had committed suicide. She left behind several diaries, whose location has become a mysteriously lost. Before her death, Starr alleged, with specific details, that she had been sexually abused by her cousin, a man many years her senior and the former Mayor of Boston, Andrew James Peters. When the carnal abuse was discovered, the ex-Mayor paid the Faithfull family hush money. That story became a book, which became a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor called "Butterfield 8." Ms. Taylor won an academy award for her role.

What is the significance of this to Harold’s case? Starr’s father was Stanley Faithfull. At the time of her death, Stanley was interviewed by a reporter about the odd and unsolved death of his former employee Harold Whitman in 1917. Stanley reported that Harold had been working for him at the Atlantic Chemical Co. on a secret chemical formula, and that he believed Harold Whitman had been assassinated by German saboteurs, ordered to slow American involvement with the British. Stanley refused to disclose the nature of the secret research, citing a proprietary business interest.

The Melrose Police, Somerville Police, Middlesex County District Attorney, FBI, Massachusetts State Police, Massachusetts Historical Society have no information regarding this case. It simply went cold at the onset of America’s entry into the Great War. Harold’s life, and the mystery of his death, were lost, until now.

I recently visited Melrose. The house at 23 Hillside Ave. remains as it was 100 years ago. It is painted beige with light green shutters, red trim and a red door, with a front and side porch. The "dump" in Somerville where Harold’s beaten body was found is still a dump, but now Rt. 18 thunders overhead, creating an underpass where many homeless find refuge. At the Wyoming Cemetery, I had a hard time finding Harold’s grave. It is hidden behind an overgrown bush, with lichen and moss all but eating into the names of Harold and his parents.

At a recent family reunion that I was invited to, his relatives, 100 years removed, remembered only the story of Harold’s misfortune. Was he killed because of a love affair? Murdered by German spies? One hundred years later, the mystery remains. Whatever the truth, we remember Harold today, on the 100th anniversary of his death.