The first post in this series detailed the nascent years of the rum running trade in Prohibition-era Rochester. During the early 1920s, rum running evolved from haphazard activity undertaken by area fishermen to a more organized system run by crews of semi-professional smugglers.
In the second half of the decade, the local Coast Guard and border patrol ramped up their activity along Lake Ontario in an attempt to quell an ever-increasing flow of illegal potables…
Smugglers typically began their journeys in the Kingston, Ontario area. From there, they usually employed one of two routes. Some traveled via the Bay of Quinte and sailed between Point Traverse and Duck Island before heading to Oswego. Others followed the Wolfe Island shoreline to Galloo Island then sailed to a point off Oswego and continued along the coastline from there.
The local Coast Guard unit, which was responsible for patrolling and protecting almost 200 miles of this Lake Ontario shoreline, eventually learned that smugglers had certain preferred drop-off locations. The hot spots nearest Rochester included Braddock Bay in Greece and Nine Mile Point in Webster.
In order to deter locals living along the coastline and elsewhere from aiding or turning a blind eye to the rum runners (a commonplace occurrence), in 1925, Customs Collector Andrew Wiedenmann announced that any informer who provided information leading to the arrest of a smuggler would be able to claim 25% of the fine or forfeiture levied on the rum runner in question.
Though it wasn’t owing to a citizen tip, the same year, the Coast Guard and customs inspectors nabbed the erstwhile “King” of the Lake Ontario rum runners, Ben Kerr. The Torontonian was unloading a cargo of beer on the lakeshore of Oklahoma Beach in Webster when Wiedenmann and his men espied him and fired eight shots at his 46-foot boat, the Martimas.
Kerr and his eight-person crew, which counted men from Irondequoit and Webster, were arrested and $10,000 worth of bootleg liquor was uncovered—a modest amount was found on the boat and scores more lay in a nearby cottage from which Kerr et al had operated a retail liquor store. Making the massive raid all the sweeter, after the customs inspectors seized the Martimas, they re-commissioned the power cruiser as a member of their own flotilla.
Arresting the so-called “King of the rum runners” did not spell an end to local liquor smuggling, as a series of pretenders to the throne arose in his wake. And demand for commercially produced Canadian products only grew after stories about the increasing number of deaths resulting from consuming homemade alcohol began peppering the pages of the press across the country in 1926.
With the increased demand came a rise in smuggling activity, higher prices for contraband cargo, and higher stakes for those involved in the rum running game.
While the majority of seizures remained non-violent, both the Coast Guard and their foes were typically armed, and skirmishes between the warring sides resulted in the deaths of two smugglers over the course of the the 1920s, while several more scofflaws were felled during battles between rival rum running gangs.
One notorious local gang leader, Milton “Midge” Staud, devised a particularly cruel way to thwart his enemies. After Staud’s “rum car” was discovered near Sodus Point in 1929, Wiedenmann and his men found a chamber on the bottom of the vehicle filled with mustard gas that was designed to release the deadly poison through the exhaust pipe should any pursuer come too close for comfort.
The discovery led Wiedenmann to state that “Lake Ontario rum runners operating in the Rochester district have resorted to desperate measures. We are going into this thing with our eyes open and with full appreciation of the serious consequences which may result.”
While the wide-eyed customs inspectors and Coast Guard were somewhat successful in their Prohibition era efforts—they seized a total of 57 rum running vessels–countless Canadian potent potables nevertheless slipped through their hands and into the mouths of grateful Rochesterians before the thirteen-year reign of dry terror known as the “Noble Experiment” came to an end in 1933.
-Emily Morry
Local History ROCs! 