Canada's Rumrunners by Art Montague

Author:Art Montague
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Canada / General, BIOGRAPHY and AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Criminals and Outlaws, BIOGRAPHY and AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical
Publisher: Lorimer
Published: 2011-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

The Class Act

Another rumrunner well known at Main Duck was Bruce Lowery. A trustworthy man with a reputation for honesty and hard work, Bruce began as a commercial fisherman. At first one of the tenant fishermen on Main Duck, in 1925 he moved to nearby Amherst Island after King Cole raised the rent. When the bottom fell out of the fish market in 1926–27, Bruce still had to make a living. Inevitably, given the company he had been keeping (namely with a shifty character named Hedley Wellbanks), he turned to rumrunning.

Among the many unlikely people to be found running rum from eastern Ontario was veterinarian Hedley Wellbanks. Hedley’s claim to fame was threefold. First, before the Volstead Act came into force, Hedley roamed the village main streets and rural back roads of eastern Ontario selling horse liniment, which was mostly alcohol. In short, he was a bootlegger. When arrested, he was accused of having sold enough horse liniment to service every horse in Ontario. Second, he was responsible for introducing Bruce Lowery to rumrunning. And third, he did Bruce Lowery such a disservice that Bruce never again fully trusted a confederate.

Hedley ran his Corby’s whisky on an old slow tub named the Rosella. In Hedley’s employ in the summer of 1927, Bruce was captaining the Rosella in broad daylight when it was impounded in Canadian waters by a Coast Guard cutter. However, as Bruce’s court date neared, more than half a dozen witnesses were prepared to attest that the Americans had transgressed, especially after Hedley ferried these witnesses on an all-expenses-paid junket to Oswego, where he wined and dined them until the trial. Two were church ministers, pillars of respectability, making the verdict a done deal. Although Hedley had never been charged, he did own the boat, which gave him a vested interest in the trial’s outcome.

The good doctor won the case, but the Rosella was put up for auction. Vexation turned to anger when he was outbid by an American bulk fish buyer who wanted the boat for hauling large quantities of fish.

But Hedley was determined that justice would triumph. The Rosella was renamed by the new owner and put into service, periodically visiting eastern Ontario ports to take on fish. Hedley bided his time and finally got his chance. He got word the boat had put in for the night on the Canadian side of the border to await loading the next morning. Accompanied by a Canada Customs officer, Hedley took back his boat at gunpoint. Then began a diplomatic kerfuffle. The doctor and the customs officer were charged with theft.

The now notorious doctor’s defence was simple. He had stolen nothing. The boat was his because the Coast Guard had illegally seized it. As for the gun incident, he blamed it on the customs man who, he testified, had acted precipitously. Apparently, truthfulness was not a Hedley Wellbanks trait; however, he did win. The presiding judge branded the Coast Guard’s original seizure an “act of piracy.”

In the meantime, Bruce Lowery had spent a month in jail.

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