Many years ago, my great-aunt passed on a decanter to me. It was a small, rather unremarkable vessel. She made a somewhat odd comment to me that suggested the decanter had been purposefully hidden away for years.
This recollection struck me while listening recently to Ian Bell’s presentation Prohibition & Rum Running on Lake Erie in Port Rowan.
“Talking to people in Port Rowan about rum -running is a little like going to Ayrshire Scotland and telling the folks there about Robbie Burns,” said Bell.
Bell a folksinger, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, storyteller, historian and visual artist originally put together his presentation when he was curator of the Port Dover Harbour Museum.
“It is not hard history, but more folklore,” the Waterford resident told an engaged crowd of about 100 gathered at Neal Memorial Church.
A brief outline of the story Bell told would begin in the 1870’s. That is when the Port Dover & Lake Huron Railway Company arrived in Dover replacing schooners and expanding the fishery. Now fish caught by Dover fishermen could be shipped to big cities across North America.
But there was an economic downturn around 1920 and about the same time American fisherman had pretty much fished out the Lake. These events paralleled the passage of the Volstead Act in the United States which enforced prohibition of alcoholic drinks.
An opportunity presented itself for Canadian fishermen in what came to be called the “midnight herring” business. That was because Canadian law said that you could make alcohol but you couldn’t sell it in Canada. It could be exported though. Much of what was exported through Norfolk was destined for Cuba. That’s a long way from Lake Erie but somehow the boats made it home from the other side the next day.
Of course, there was hardly any rum involved in those nighttime shipments across the lake to nearby Erie Pennsylvania. The cargo was primarily whisky and some beer.
According to Bell a case that cost $32.00 here would sell in the States for about $100.00
By the time Bell began to document the story of rum-running those who had been directly involved had passed away. Bell depended on “small boys” named Harry (Harry Barrett, Harry Waddle and Harry Gamble) to put the tale together.
Those “small boys” had been young kids of around 10 years of age when the events took place. They reminisced about patching up bullet holes in the tugs and watching big fires on the pier when boxes carrying whisky were burned as boats departed for Erie. They could evoke memories of fast bullet-proofed boats with powerful airplane engines zipping across the waves under cover of darkness.
Of course, no story of prohibition times would be complete without our local tale regarding the wreck of the wooden schooner City of Dresden off Long Point in November 1922.
Like the authorities Bell always wondered why none of the Old Crow Bourbon Whiskey turned up. Some time ago he went looking and found an Old Crow Bottle (circa 1928) online. No, it wasn’t from the Port Rowan wreck and salvage but that beverage was pretty close to the real thing.
That bourbon cost Ian Bell $100 in American dollars. Some time later he twisted the cap on that bottle, popped the cork, slowly took a sip and cast his mind back to those American bound fast boats with airplane engines speeding across Long Point Bay a century ago.
As Bell points out relatively few locals were involved in the rum running business. They got into the business out of economic necessity and because Prohibition created an opportunity.
The story was a different one at other spots on the Great Lakes. In Erie PA., for example, rum running, initially a small-time operation, was suddenly producing revenues of $800,000 – $900,000 a night according to historian Dr. David Frew.** Crime families in Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit took notice and moved in on the action.
Rum-running was dangerous. Across North America more than 20 U.S. Coast Guard personnel died in pursuit of rum runners. Exactly how many rum-runners perished is unknown.
Prohibition came about due to intense lobbying by Temperance groups that started as far back as the 1830’s.
That brings me back to my great-aunt’s decanter. Her father (George H. Lees) was heavily involved in the temperance movement. Lees, a one-time president of the Hamilton Prohibition Union, involved himself in local politics where he reportedly “prowled the streets” visiting many Hamilton saloons, cigar stores and pool halls. His visits meant these businesses were often shut down. (Yes, it wasn’t just River City that had trouble with pool halls.). The decanter was probably not a featured adornment in whatever Lees’ family household it resided in.
Later in 1927 Lees founded the radio station CHML likely because the existing station CKOC had pulled a sermon off the air dealing with prohibition. My great grandfather kept a radio on his desk. One day, according to the Dictionary of Hamilton Biography, he was outraged to hear the song Roll out the Barrel being played on the station.
“Lees immediately pushed himself away from his work angrily stomped down to CHML headquarters, demanded to be presented the record then proceeded to split it into pieces over his knee.”
Remarkably the family decanter has survived over the years.
The advocacy work of the temperance movement was undoubtedly well intentioned but at the end of the day created new problems before prohibition was lifted in 1933.
The Women’s Christian Temperance movement is still active in Canada, but seems to have moderated its views.
But check social media and you’ll find many individuals and numerous groups interested in regulating the behaviour of others.
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*A shorter version of this story originally appeared in the Port Rowan Good News.
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