POSTING #124

 

Prohibition

This week, PBS has been running a series on prohibition in the US. The blurb for the program says:

"PROHIBITION is a three-part, five-and-a-half-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed."

Watching the superb documentary (when was Ken Burns ever involved in any project that was  less than superb?) I recalled a family story about Ontario's experiment with prohibition.

Fishing for Midnight Herring in Lake Ontario

When I was growing up I loved to hear my father and his brother---my Uncle Syd---tell stories about their time as traffic officers on the Toronto to Hamilton highway. (The highway, built by the Toronto-Hamilton Highway Commission---a body of the Ontario Government---was finished in 1917. The highway, the first concrete one in Canada, had its own traffic officers who tried to enforce the 'sensible and sane' speed limit of 30 miles an hour. Later on, the highway was absorbed into the growing network of Ontario highways---as Highway 2---and the traffic officers were taken into the Ontario Provincial Police.)

One of their favourite stories was about the fishing boats from Port Credit that carried Canadian rye whisky to Cuba.

Sounds implausible?

You're right.

Let me back up a bit and set the stage.

 But first, I should deal with the spelling of whisky. There is a dispute about which spelling is correct: whisky or whiskey. The Scots clearly favour 'whisky' but in North America we seem to vacillate between the two spellings. I'm going with the Scots, and if you don't mind, I would really prefer not to have an argument about that.

During prohibition in Ontario---from 1916 to 1927---the sale of alcoholic beverages was banned.

There were however some exceptions. The Canadian Encyclopedia reports on one exception:

 "One way to drink legally was to be 'ill', for doctors could give prescriptions to be filled at drugstores. Scandalous abuse of this system resulted, with veritable epidemics and long line-ups occurring during the Christmas holiday season."

Although the legal consumption of alcohol was banned (for the drinker, there were however a few oases---so called 'speakeasies' and 'blind pigs'---where illegal hooch could be consumed) there was no ban on the production of alcoholic beverages so long as it was for export. The politicians in Queen's Park presumably concluded that it would be wrong to punish the farmers who grew the grain for whisky, the workers who distilled the product, or the owners of the distilleries who were good loyal Canadians, and probably political campaign contributors.

The answer was to keep on distilling but to make sure that the product was exported.

That's where the Port Credit fishing boats came in.

Dad and Uncle Syd would chuckle as they described how, late in the day, fishing boats would pull up at the Parliament Street dock of Gooderham and Worts distillery in Toronto and, with Customs officials watching, take on a load of metal containers of whisky. until the water was up to the gunnels of the boats.

The Customs officer would then sign and stamp the documents to show that the whisky was being legally exported to Cuba, and the boats would sail slowly into the lake being careful of any waves that might wash over the deck and swamp them. As night descended, the boats would disappear into the darkness.

The next morning the boats would be back in the Port Credit Harbour.

Of course, they hadn't sailed to Cuba---only Santa Claus and his reindeer could have accomplished that.

They actually docked, under the cover of darkness, in the abandoned brick yard in Port Credit and unloaded their valuable cargo.

When I did a Google search to try to verify the story, I found Ron Brown's excellent book, "From Queenston to Kingston: The Hidden Heritage of Lake Ontario's Shoreline".

Brown confirms the story and adds some details. He claims that it was a certain bootlegger, Joe Burke, the owner of the Lakeview Inn in Port Credit, who masterminded this fishing-boat-export-to-Cuba scheme. According to Brown, the exercise was code-named 'midnight herring'---therefore the title of this Posting.

Once ashore the whisky had to be transported to thirsty consumers in Canada and the US.

One of the ways was to use high speed cars on Ontario's improving roads. A number of the cars were destined for the Windsor area, from which the whisky could be carried by boats across the St. Clair River into the US.

The tattered clipping--- from I think the Toronto Telegram---shows that these 'rum runners' sometimes forgot that when one is doing something illegal one should be careful not to break other laws, for example, speed limits. I hope you can read the article---you may have to click to enlarge it.

(The article is from a treasured stash of clippings and memorabilia about our family collected over the years by my mother and stored in a battered but airtight blue metal box. According to the printing on the box, it originally contained 'Moonlight Mellos' made by Patterson Chocolates Ltd of Toronto---"Fluffy Marshmallows That Melt in the Mouth".   

The Hunter Family Archive!

 My Dad kept photos of the car with the containers of whisky and I have them somewhere. When they are found, I'll add them to this Posting.

I'm afraid I can't tell you much about the rum runners and what happened to them. My recollection from the story told by Dad and Uncle Syd was that they were Americans but I can't swear to that.

Minor traffic offenses in the Clarkson area of the Toronto-Hamilton Highway were presided over by the local justice of the peace, Reuben Lush, who happened to be my mother's father, and my grandfather---sort of, "All in the Family".

I suspect that because it involved far more than just speeding, this case would have been referred for trial to the magistrate in Port Credit.

My father and Uncle Syd had sworn to uphold the law, and they did their duty in arresting the rum runners, but I think it is fair to say that they thought the prohibition legislation was unfair, silly and, ultimately unenforceable.

That's why they found the saga of the Port Credit fishing boats so humorous.

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See you on October 16th for Posting #125th with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:

I have now uploaded four Postings on The Icewine Guru blog: one about the dangers of the US income gap; one about a possible lesson the US could learn from Canada about how to deal with its unemployment crisis: one about whether 'Western' countries should ban the wearing of face coverings by Muslim women; and, one which asks the question, 'Is Obama a Wimp?'. The topics are serious but I have tried to give them an entertaining treatment. If you haven't tried the Guru blog yet, you might like to browse these Postings by clicking on the link below. The next Guru Posting will appear when I feel I have something to say about an important public issue---at http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/