By Jim Marquardt

 

The 18^th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified on January 29, 1919 and Prohibition became the law of the land. Congressman Andrew J. Volstead, backed by evangelicals and reformers, defined intoxicating liquors as any beverage containing more than one-half of one percent alcohol. There’s more alcohol than that in hair tonic. The effects on the country were devastating – organized crime expanded to dominate the distribution of illegal liquor, police were often corrupted by payoffs, disrespect for the law grew, and consumption of alcohol actually increased during the 13 years Prohibition was in effect.

Many years ago, the Sag Harbor Express reported that during those days liquor  was available “under the counter” to anyone who wanted it. “There are old timers in Sag Harbor who can recall speakeasies in North Haven, Sag Harbor and East Hampton.” A few entrepreneurs made their own hootch but the best came from overseas through Nova Scotia, Bermuda, Canada and the West Indies. Ocean-going supply vessels loaded with hundreds of cases of liquor would lie three miles off Long Island, just beyond U.S. jurisdiction and await local rumrunners in small, fast boats who would take aboard whatever they could carry and head for the East End’s bays and coves. The booze would be hidden until it was loaded onto trucks for the run to Manhattan and its numerous speakeasies. Later, the international limit was pushed out to 12 miles, which called for faster, bigger speedboats. Some of them, said George Finkenor, writer of the Express article, were powered by surplus Liberty aircraft engines from World War I. Supposedly a big name in rum running was Captain Bill McCoy who was not connected with any syndicate and who became known for handling the best, uncut booze. Liquor from this “honest crook” was considered “the real McCoy.”

In August 1923, wrote Dorothy Zaykowski in her definitive book Sag Harbor: An American Beauty, agents raided a Noyac home and discovered 119 cases of liquor originating from Scotland and the Bahamas. No one was home to arrest. In 1927, a Saturday Evening Post writer came to Sag Harbor to report on rum running activities. The proprietor of the American Hotel at the time told him that things were quiet now but a year ago the village was busy with motorboats bringing liquor in from “the row,” and trucks leaving for Manhattan in the middle of the night.

In his book The Dark Side of Camelot, well-known investigative reporter Seymour M.Hersh wrote that Peter Maas, another prize-winning journalist, was told by Mafia boss Frank Costello that he and Joseph Kennedy had been partners in bootlegging. In a 1983 memoir A Man of Honor, another Mafia chieftain, Joe Bonanno, said the same thing, quoting Costello that he would sometimes go to Sag Harbor in the summer. “This was one of the coves, so I was told, that the Kennedy people used to transport whisky during Prohibition.” 

In April 1923 under a front page headline Harbor Man Held in Rum Raid, the Express reported that officers raided the premises of one Krupinsky on Atlantic Avenue. The officers seized a boiler and “several gallons of alleged illegal intoxicants and mash…A report that during the raid the gutters of Goat Alley were flowing with hootch…could not be authenticated.”

An article in the Southampton Press reporting on a library talk by village old-timers said local farm fields supplied corn, potatoes and rye that crude distilleries could turn into liquor. When the Feds raided a large still just north of Bridgehampton, they caught two of its operators, but two others “jumped out the window and ran into the woods to Noyac.” The story tellers said that locals could make more money transporting liquor than distilling it since they generally had faster boats than the government and knew all the inlets and harbors. One fellow installed heavy springs in his Chrysler Roadster and packed in 10 cases, worth $5 each at his Brooklyn destination. He was stopped by revenue agents on Montauk Highway but he had hidden the liquor underneath crates of cauliflower and they let him go,

On Feb. 16, 1930, the NY Times ran a lengthy article describing two incidents in which the Coast Guard shot at suspected rum runners. “Early in the week, shots had been fired from the Coast Guard Cutters Eagle and Niniha at East Hampton when residents of the vicinity approached the water line where liquor from a stranded run runner had been jettisoned.” Among those fired on were Sag Harbor men Cecil C. Wyen, William Petty, Frederich Budd and Romeo Bozze. In another incident, James Hildreth of Southampton complained to the Suffolk County District Attorney that he and a party of men and women were returning around 3:30 a.m. from a Masonic Dinner-Dance at the Ft. Pond Restaurant in Montauk. Near Napeague Beach, pistol shots whizzed by their cars. They screeched to a stop and were surrounded by Coast Guardsmen who apologized and asked them to forget the incident.

George Finkenor tells about the ocean going vessel Beatrice Kay which was boarded by Coast Guardsmen near Cedar Point but was found to be loaded only with fish and ice. The captain said he was putting into Sag Harbor for repairs. The Coast Guard skipper doubted the alibi and escorted the ship to New London where they almost tore it apart before discovering 1600 sacks of Meadville Pure Rye Whisky. A judge found the crew not guilty, stating the Coast Guard had no right to board the Beatrice Kay without a search warrant since the ship was the home of the crewmen and therefore inviolate.

Prohibition helped Sag Harbor prosper during the early years of the depression and its repeal in 1933 was partly to blame for sending the village into a long funk. Stories about those days abound and it’s impossible to tell which ones are accurate, but it was another colorful chapter in the history of the old whaling village. 

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