Carolina Coast Is Safe Haven for the Booze Smugglers. . . Almost Inaccessible Shore Line Many Miles in Length Gives the Rum Smuggler De Luxe an Excellent Opportunity to Land Cargo and Get Away in Safety; Writer Tells of one of the Methods Employed in Landing Contraband
By Billiken
It is a moonlight night off the coast of Carolina. Ten or 12 miles off Beaufort bar a schooner lazily drifts along. There is practically no wind and her sails are furled. Apparently the captain and crew are waiting for the wind to rise and to give the ship enough breeze to fill her sails. Running lights are displayed and from the cabin comes the glow of a shaded light. That is all, apparently.
But that is not all.
Soon there is unusual activity about the decks of the schooner. The sound of hatch covers being removed is heard. Guttural commands are given and presently the clinking of glass against glass is heard. This is followed by the dully thud of objects on the deck of the ship. There are many of these objects it seems and all the while the activity of the men aboard the boat goes on.
Presently the chug-chug of an auxiliary engine is heard. The schooner comes to life and begins to move more swiftly through the water. Men gather at one rail or in the bow with what appear to be sacks in their hands. At a command from the captain they drop “something” overboard and this “something” is followed at intervals by others.
The schooner runs along for a hundred yard. Then the last object is dropped into the sea. A short snappy command and the ship is turned about and headed in an opposite course but on a vertical line.
Comes another command. Again the ship turned around. Another course is run and again this strange dropping of “something” over the side of the boat is performed. This may continue for an hour or two or longer. Then comes a call from the man in charge of the crew to the effect that it is “all through.”
Quickly the crew begin to unfurl the boat’s sails and in a few minutes the craft is headed south, and son becomes a mere speck on the moonlit seas, finally disappearing altogether and the waves surge on and over the spot where mysterious happenings a short time before were in progress.
Comes dawn and peeping over the expanse of water to the east, that fiery orb, the sun, soon ascends on its way across the sky. From some point, obscure or otherwise in that section, possibly from one of the port towns, another schooner puts out to sea, apparently to fish.
Arriving at the point where the mysterious happenings of the night before occurred, the sails are lowered, but not furled. The speed of the boat drops to a mere “crawl” while officers and crew line the rail. Suddenly someone cries, “there it is,” and immediately a boat hook goes into the water and the object below is caught in its claw and pulled to the deck. This object is found to be a large piece of cork and attached to this is a rope. The rope is drawn in and every 10 or 15 feet is found a tow sack.
The schooner goes over the same courses as those followed by the ship which sailed that way the night before until finally all of the sacks have been taken abroad. The sales ae raised and the ship sails back to shore, usually reaching her destination late in the afternoon or after dusk.
Then the strange cargo is taken some to small boats, usually some secluded point from whence is later removed in automobiles, motor trucks and carried to the desired points. The schooner, in the meantime, has returned to her mooring, the crew goes its way until another time and no one is the wiser.
Such is one method now being employed by rum smugglers in landing contraband liquor off the North Carolina coast. The method is not generally known and in order that no undue suspicions may be created by an unusual influx of “bottled in bond” rye and scotch it is said that but little of this whiskey is being sold in North Carolina, the most of it being transported across the state in automobiles. Some of it, however, is being and has been disposed of in this state but the price charged for this “real stuff” is high that it does not meet with ready sale.
The method of transporting the contraband to the North Carolina coast and its unloading off shore and its later reclamation from the watery depths is simple, yet risky.
The most of the rye and Scotch whiskey brought to local shores comes from the Bermudas. It is a comparatively easy matter for a schooner to clear from the Bermudas with a cargo of wet goods bound for Nova Scotia. Her clearance papers show her cargo and her destination. If she is picked up at sea by a revenue cutter her captain has only to show his papers and to show that he has not landed, and he is safe. He rarely comes within 12 miles of shore.
Before the ship leaves port her course is marked out to correspond with a course already arranged by the owners of the cargo. At a certain point the captain is to dump his cargo into the sea, to run certain courses in making this dumping, then to send up certain rockets as signals and to go on his way. He has only to return to port. He does not have to show his papers on his way home, and he is safe.
And in the meantime arrangements have been made with the owner of a schooner at this end to go out and pick the cargo up. The captain of that vessel has a chart corresponding with that used by the rum carrier. He watches and waits for the signals and when these are seen, it only remains to go out, locate the cork which is attached to the sunken contraband, haul it aboard and return to shore. Perfectly simple and almost absolutely safe, for awhile at least.
When the famous “Message of Peace,” Captain Ben Coleman in command, went ashore off Ocracoke Inlet two years ago, he was attempting to unload a carbo of whiskey in this manner. The only thing that prevented him from dumping his cargo was the fact that the whiskey had been packed in wooden cases instead of the usual tow sacks, and he was afraid to risk it in that manner. In the meantime, he ran out of supplies. His ship was struck by a storm and he was forced to put into Ocracoke where the government nabbed his boat, his crew and himself. The result was that Captain Coleman spent several months in the Craven county jail in lieu of paying a fine of $5,000 and later became involved in litigations, the whole of which resulted in a loss to himself of about $25,000.
A short time later another vessel which was attempting to dump a cargo of whiskey overboard in the vicinity of Beaufort inlet was espied by a revenue cutter, which gave chase, and the captain ordered the entire cargo thrown overboard regardless. For weeks the people of Beaufort and Morehead City fished cases of whiskey from the waters of that section. It is said that hundreds of dollars’ worth of this was sold. Certainly it is that much of it found its way inland.
Just who “engineers” these rum smuggling operations off the Carolina coast is more or less a mystery. Certainly it is not any of the native Tar Heels and so far as is known none of the coast fishermen have aided and abetted in bringing the contraband to shore. Usually the entire operation, from dumping the whiskey into the sea to hauling it out and bringing it ashore and transporting it into and out of the state is conducted by strangers who are secretive and silent as to their methods. No one in that locality knows when they are coming nor whence they go. That they are well informed as to roads, policing of that section and in fact every possible necessary bit of information is apparent. They carry on their operations quietly and unostentatiously and then go their way. So far they have escaped the clutches of the law, as a whole, though some of their agents have been apprehended here and there at various points in the state.
Just who “engineers” these rum smuggling operations off the Carolina coast is more or less a mystery. Certainly it is not any of the native Tar Heels and so far as is known none of the coast fishermen have aided and abetted in bringing the contraband to shore. Usually the entire operation, from dumping the whiskey into the sea to hauling it out and bringing it ashore and transporting it into and out of the state is conducted by strangers who are secretive and silent as to their methods. No one in that locality knows when they are coming nor whence they go. That they are well informed as to roads, policing of that section and in fact every possible necessary bit of information is apparent. They carry on their operations quietly and unostentatiously and then go their way. So far they have escaped the clutches of the law, as a whole, though some of their agents have been apprehended here and there at various points in the state.
But it is apparent that there is little sale for their smuggled goods in North Carolina, the native product—the juice of the corn, can be obtained more readily and at a far less price and is more powerful potion in its effect and this makes the demand for the smuggled goods so that the smugglers find little sale for their contraband here, hence its hasty transfer to other and more distant points.
From page 15 of the Durham Herald, Sunday, Nov. 2, 1924
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