Description To Run-running days

R.H. Sherwood’s

Flashback

To rum-running days

                The people of Pictou flocked to the waterfront in May 1954, to have a look at a vessel that they had never seen before, that they had heard a great deal about.  Among the vessels in for refit or repairs in that month in was one that carried the name “Josephine K.” This sea- battered motor vessel was in repairs to her broken tail shaft. 

                At that time, the “Josephine K” was living a quiet life in the costal trade between Halifax and Cheticamp.  She looked like many other coasting vessel, but she had a history and a few scars that told something of her colorful career in the stirring days of the run- running trade to the United States back in the 1930’s.

When the “Josephine K” entered Pictou in 1954, those who gather on the wharf were there to see a vessel linked with the illegal liquor trade on the high seas, and to re-call the death of her captain on the vessel’s deck.  A death that was to cause embarrassment between the United States and Canada.  And it was this incident that helped to hasten the repeal of the prohibition law in the United States. 

                The “Joseph K” was one of the fleet of the fast rum runners that ran the gauntlet of the U.S. Coast Guard in the 1930’s. 

In 1954, the vessel was still in the liquor business- a trade she was born into.  In the 1930’s she was running rum from the West Indies to American ports.  That trade was illegal.  But in 1954, the “Josephine K” was still transporting liquor.  This time legally from Halifax to Cheticamp for the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission.  That other rum runner, the Famous “I’m alone,” also made newspaper headlines in that dangerous game of rum-running and endeavoring to outsmart the American Coast Guard. 

                The “Josephine k” made headlines too, with a tragic ending.  Running off Ambrose Light in January 1931, the “Josephine K,” out of Lunenburg at the time, was challenged by a patrolling U.S. Coast Guard Vessel.  When the “Josephine K” failed to stop on demand, a warning shot was fired at the fast fleeing Canadian Rum- runner. AS bullet struck the Captain as he stood at the wheel of his vessel and he died aboard a short time afterwards. 

                That fatal bullet was to stir up a hornet’s nest of international complication between the United States and Canada, and the bitterness over the traffic event ran high in Nova Scotia, particularly in the town of Lunenburg, home port of the victim of the sea shooting. 

                So high ran the feelings of the people over the tragic shooting of the Nova Scotia captain, that many called it, “Murder on the High Seas.” However, that shooting incident, along with others of a similar pattern was to hasten the repeal of the Prohibition Law in the United States. 

The “Josephine K” was built in 1928 on the South Shore of Nova Scotia, and was one of a fast fleet of Nova Scotia, and was one of a fast fleet of motor vessels operating in the rum- running trade from the West Indies ports to secret rendezvous along the United States Coast. 

                Other vessels in that illegal trade which had close calls with the U.S. Coast Guard were to become familiar in Pictou.  They were the “Amacita: and the “Corticelli.” In the 1030’s both these vessel gained fame in the rum- running trade.  After the repeal of Prohibition in the United States both vessels were purchased by maritime Packers LTD., to carry lobsters from Newfoundland and Pictou to the Boston Market.

                When the “Josephine K” tied up at the Pictou wharf in 1954, she still has a small hole near one of the cabin port where the bullet when through to kill the captain on that winter morning of 1931.

                By Roland H. Sherwood (D.LITT.)

Historical Writer