1923-33 RUMRUNNING
The MALAHAT-- a five-masted schooner, a contraband warehouse, and the Queen of Canada's Pacific "Rum Row." Built 1917 in Victoria, BC. Shown here in Melbourne harbour, Australia, circa 1918--fulfilling her original purpose: delivering BC lumber. Courtesy State Library of Victoria, Australia.
CEO of Vancouver Rumrunning
Courtly, calm, and creative, Captain Charles Hudson inspired the confidence and loyalty of business associates as well as captains and crews. Photo from rumrunner Hugh Garling's articles, published monthly from Jan-Dec 1989 in the Vancouver periodical "Harbour & Shipping," available now in the BC Provincial Archives.
Yorkshireman Captain Charles Hudson was a WWI British naval hero who emigrated to Canada, then failed at farming in Manitoba. By 1923 he had returned to the sea in Vancouver and became captain of the three-masted rumrunning schooner Coal Harbour. The next year he was hired by the General Navigation Co of Vancouver as official rumrunning "shore-captain," or marine superintendent.
"Unoficially he became boss of the west coast rum fleet," --Jim Stone, "My Dad the Rum Runner," North Waterloo Academic Press, Waterloo Ontario. 2002.
General Navigation was the biggest of Vancouver's four rumrunning syndicates, and the Chief Skugaid was one of several vessels contracted by the company. Hudson-- besides co-ordination of recruiting and schedules for some sixty contract crews and vessels of different sizes and functions-- administered purchase and delivery of all fuel, food, equipment, and medical supplies.
He also developed a crucial improvement in ship-to-shore radio communication. His system enabled confidential shortwave contact between smuggling vessels and his home in Vancouver's Point Grey neighbourhood. The young woman who helped operate the shortwave radio was Hazel Stone, sister of Vancouver's longest-serving rumrunner: Captain Stuart S. Stone of the mothership Malahat.
Hazel lived with Stuart, his wife, and his kids in their house near Yew and York Streets, working as an operator at the BC Telephone Exchange on Seymour St downtown. "Every evening she took the Fourth Avenue streetcar to the western end of the line and made her way to Hudson's home in the Jericho Beach area where she spent several hours (usually between nine and eleven pm) transmitting Hudson's instructions to the rum runners," using the secret codes devised by Hudson. [Source: My Dad, the Rum Runner, by Jim Stone, North Waterloo Academic Press, 2001.]
"Unoficially he became boss of the west coast rum fleet," --Jim Stone, "My Dad the Rum Runner," North Waterloo Academic Press, Waterloo Ontario. 2002.
General Navigation was the biggest of Vancouver's four rumrunning syndicates, and the Chief Skugaid was one of several vessels contracted by the company. Hudson-- besides co-ordination of recruiting and schedules for some sixty contract crews and vessels of different sizes and functions-- administered purchase and delivery of all fuel, food, equipment, and medical supplies.
He also developed a crucial improvement in ship-to-shore radio communication. His system enabled confidential shortwave contact between smuggling vessels and his home in Vancouver's Point Grey neighbourhood. The young woman who helped operate the shortwave radio was Hazel Stone, sister of Vancouver's longest-serving rumrunner: Captain Stuart S. Stone of the mothership Malahat.
Hazel lived with Stuart, his wife, and his kids in their house near Yew and York Streets, working as an operator at the BC Telephone Exchange on Seymour St downtown. "Every evening she took the Fourth Avenue streetcar to the western end of the line and made her way to Hudson's home in the Jericho Beach area where she spent several hours (usually between nine and eleven pm) transmitting Hudson's instructions to the rum runners," using the secret codes devised by Hudson. [Source: My Dad, the Rum Runner, by Jim Stone, North Waterloo Academic Press, 2001.]
Chief Skugaid: Longest-serving rumrunner vessel
Starting in 1922, and carrying on for eleven years, the Chief Skugaid operated as a transfer-smuggler of Canadian liquor from Vancouver to the Malahat, Lillehorn, Mogul, and similar ships of "rum row" off the Pacific coast of the US and Mexico.
Prohibition Background
The CHIEF SKUGAID, riding low in the water with a full load of liquor cases in her two holds. Her actual length is 86 feet. No date, from "Slow Boat on Rum Row" by Fraser Miles, Harbour Publishing, 1992
In 1920 the American Volstead Act prohibited liquor production, sales, and importation, but included few measures to prevent smuggling. Canadian and American mariners realized the potential, and what for years had been a minor black market evading liquor duties, became a million-dollar industry moving liquor into the US-- at first rum from the Caribbean, then bourbon, beer, scotch, gin, wine, champagne, etc. from Canada and Europe. At sea, their system eventually used three kinds of vessels: very large 'warehouse' ships like the Canadian schooner Malahat (5 masts, 246' long) and the England-built Lillehorn, intermediate transfer vessels like the Chief Skugaid, and smaller fast-delivery motorboats.
Map from Fraser Miles's Slow Boat on Rum Row:
Map from Fraser Miles's Slow Boat on Rum Row:
Fraser Miles was a Mission High School dropout who became a deckhand on rumrunners in December, 1931. He includes several maps in his 1992 rumrunning memoir, "SLOW BOAT ON RUM ROW" that show various rumrunner positions along the coast. He later got his diploma, went to university, and eventually became Assistant General Manager (Engineering) at the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority. This map includes the location where the rumrunner JESSIE was run down and sunk at night, 100 miles west of San Diego. Ship, cargo, and papers all lost; but crew saved.
Unique Film: from the Deck of a Victoria BC Rumrunner
Following is film-footage by Richard Francis Heurtley Reed of Victoria BC, deckhand on a smuggling voyage from Victoria, BC to the Mexican coast, circa 1932. In the film, the captain and five-man crew of the MV Hickey encounter/avoid US Coast Guard cutters, and rendezvous with two mother-ships, the Malahat and the Lillehorn. The film uses title cards to explain the action as the Hickey motors through heaving ocean swells on the way to Mexico, takes on 1600 cases of liquor, and sails to "Hasseler's Cove" for repairs, on the tiny island of San Martine, 50 miles south of Ensenada.
This is the only known film of a marine rumrunner engaged in actual smuggling operations, in any waters, anywhere.
This is the only known film of a marine rumrunner engaged in actual smuggling operations, in any waters, anywhere.
The vessel featured in Richard Reed's film, below. It is not yet known how a US Navy vessel, built in San Francisico, came to be part of the Canadian liquor-smuggling fleet. Photo is undated. From "Slow Boat on Rum Row" by Fraser Miles, Harbour Publishing,1992.
Silent film, with title cards, of a rum runner voyage from Victoria, BC Canada, to Rum Row off the Mexican coast, c.1932, by Richard Heurtley Reed.
Courtesy of Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. V1999:12/001.02
Grateful acknowledgement is extended to Archive staff.
Courtesy of Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. V1999:12/001.02
Grateful acknowledgement is extended to Archive staff.
Liquor Transfer to Mothership
The photos below illustrate one aspect of handling liquor at sea, beyond the 12-mile limit. The limit of national waters had previously been 3 miles. After several years of failing to prevent maritime rumrunning, the US government compelled other countries to agree to a 12-mile limit, hoping it would enable US Coast Guard cutters to intercept smuggling vessels.
In the first photo, the vessel Marechal Foch is an intermediate smuggler, like the Chief Skugaid --not to be confused with the French WW2 battleship named for the same general.
After loading hundreds of wooden liquor crates aboard the Malahat from the Marechal Foch, the crew will uncrate the bottles and put them into burlap sacks stiffened with slats from the crates.
In the first photo, the vessel Marechal Foch is an intermediate smuggler, like the Chief Skugaid --not to be confused with the French WW2 battleship named for the same general.
After loading hundreds of wooden liquor crates aboard the Malahat from the Marechal Foch, the crew will uncrate the bottles and put them into burlap sacks stiffened with slats from the crates.
Besides being the name of a WW1 French general, "Marechal Foch" is also, happily, a family of dark grapes that make a robust red wine. Pronounced Mah-rey shall Fohsh.
Liquor Transfer to Contact ("distributor") Boats
The following liquor-transfer photos are from the records of Dana and Ginger Lamb, who in 1933 paddled and sailed from California to Mexico, Central America, and South America in a homemade canoe. They eventually wrote articles and books about this and other adventures. Best known is Enchanted Vagabonds, which includes their tale of a brief time aboard a Canadian rumrunner. They had launched at San Diego, minimally prepared for a journey in the heat and fogs of the Pacific Ocean summer. Eventually, as described in Chapter Two of the book, they lost sight of land, ran short of water, and were on the brink of disaster. But then, "a hundred miles" off the coast of Ensenada, they encounter the rumrunner Taiheiyo.
"Budge" (Sidney Burridge-- later captain of another rumrunner, the Chief Skugaid; see logbook description below) is the "young blond" captain of the Taiheiyo according to the Lambs' account. The Lambs say he hosted them for a week, during which someone, probably Dana, took the liquor-transfer photos below. One of the photos is probably of the Taiheiyo, because it includes a young woman whose appearance fits other photos of Ginger Lamb... and because the photos are in the Dana and Ginger Lamb Collection at the Sherman Library, part of the Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona del Mar, California.
Photos of Liquor Transfer
Two different rumrunning 'contact boats' are being loaded from a much larger "mothership," likely on the same hot afternoon. The mothership is not named, but has structural similarities to the Lillehorn. In both photos, the same crewman stands on a platform and tosses down liquor bottles in burlap bags that are padded with straw or paper and made rigid with wood slats from liquor cases. Total bottles transferred this way may not have been large, though the second photo, at right, shows a relay system in use.
In the same photo, the captain, mate, and cook look on from the elevated pilot-house deck of the mothership. The photo appears to show a young woman aboard the smaller vessel, also watching the precarious booze-bag transfer. She is likely Virginia "Ginger" Lamb, and the man is likely captain Sidney Burridge of the Taiheiyo... later captain of the Chief Skugaid and mate aboard the Malahat.
"Budge" (Sidney Burridge-- later captain of another rumrunner, the Chief Skugaid; see logbook description below) is the "young blond" captain of the Taiheiyo according to the Lambs' account. The Lambs say he hosted them for a week, during which someone, probably Dana, took the liquor-transfer photos below. One of the photos is probably of the Taiheiyo, because it includes a young woman whose appearance fits other photos of Ginger Lamb... and because the photos are in the Dana and Ginger Lamb Collection at the Sherman Library, part of the Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona del Mar, California.
Photos of Liquor Transfer
Two different rumrunning 'contact boats' are being loaded from a much larger "mothership," likely on the same hot afternoon. The mothership is not named, but has structural similarities to the Lillehorn. In both photos, the same crewman stands on a platform and tosses down liquor bottles in burlap bags that are padded with straw or paper and made rigid with wood slats from liquor cases. Total bottles transferred this way may not have been large, though the second photo, at right, shows a relay system in use.
In the same photo, the captain, mate, and cook look on from the elevated pilot-house deck of the mothership. The photo appears to show a young woman aboard the smaller vessel, also watching the precarious booze-bag transfer. She is likely Virginia "Ginger" Lamb, and the man is likely captain Sidney Burridge of the Taiheiyo... later captain of the Chief Skugaid and mate aboard the Malahat.
The distance the burlap bag of booze must be tossed is shorter here: the contact boat has more freeboard; its deck is higher. The Malahat crewman in a sailor hat here also appears in the second photo. The second photo includes a rope-ladder not present here.
Courtesy of the Sherman Library Lamb Collection - Corona del Mar, California
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Women were seldom aboard during rumrunning operations, though Emmie Binns Stone lived aboard the Malahat with her husband captain Stuart Stone, 1932-33. This woman could be Ginger Lamb-- aboard the Taiheiyo. See story above- Courtesy of the Sherman Library Lamb Collection - Corona del Mar, California
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The Lambs' story of their "week" on the rumrunner Taiheiyo includes some unlikely tales of fooling Coast Guard cutters while Ginger, not Captain Budge, is at the wheel. There is no reference to the Taiheiyo's mothership or to the only woman known to sail permanently aboard a rumrunner: Emmie Binns Stone, wife of Captain Stuart S. Stone of the Malahat.
A Married Couple Aboard the Malahat
Captain Stone, top o' the MALAHAT. The horizon tilts dizzyingly, but a it's a good perch for spotting US Coast Guard cutters. The figure next up the mast is probably Sidney Burridge, acting as Mate on this trip.
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Chief Skugaid and the Lillehorn
The Lillehorn was a steel British-built freighter used-- like the larger, wooden, and five-masted Malahat-- as a mothership to the rumrunners of Vancouver, BC.
Photo is originally from the National Archives of Canada, but used here in a history of US Coast Guard attempts to stop rumrunning. The history was written by a US Coast Guard Commander and published by the US Treasury Department: "RUM WAR AT SEA," Malcolm F Willoughby, Commander USCGR(T); US Gov't Printing Office, 1964. Photo taken by US Coast Guard personnel.
Returning to shore from beyond the US 12-mile limit. The stack and house of the ship in the background indicate it was the LILLEHORN. The photo was taken aboard a small vessel loaded with sacks of liquor from the mothership. Photo is uncaptioned-- from Hugh 'Red' Garling's collection at the RUMRUNNER pub in Sidney, BC.
Chief Skugaid's Official Log of a Smuggling Voyage
Here's the story of one of the Chief Skugaid's smuggling voyages to rendezvous with the Malahat, told in the Chief's official ship's log. The Chief, like all rum-runners, carried two logs: the government-required official one, shown below, and the unofficial, rumrunner log. The latter recorded payments and liquor totals...loaded, damaged, gifted to officials, unloaded... As a necessary but incriminating document, it was kept in a special leather binder weighted with lead. It would be dropped overboard if the US Coast Guard could not be outrun or outwitted. [Personal communication, descendant of Chief Skugaid captain Sidney Burridge.]
The official Log Book for one of the Chief Skugaid's voyages to Rum Row, on the document photography table at the BC Provincial Archives.
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The following is from the Chief's official Log, Jan-Oct, 1932.
According to the entry below in the government-issue booklet titled "Log Book...," Master [Captain] S[idney] Burridge-- Cert No. 4958-- writes that the Chief Skugaid, Official Number 133736, Gross/Net Tonnage 80.21/54.52, commenced a winter voyage on January 26,1932, from Vancouver BC.
The Nature of the Voyage or Employment is not stated. Instead, Captain Burridge merely provides the destination: "Ensenada, Mexico." Ensenada is about 60 miles south of the US border, where the Chief Skugaid will rendezvous with the Malahat, the Lillehorne, or other ships of Rum Row. The unnamed cargo is Canadian liquor in wooden crates and burlap bags
The Nature of the Voyage or Employment is not stated. Instead, Captain Burridge merely provides the destination: "Ensenada, Mexico." Ensenada is about 60 miles south of the US border, where the Chief Skugaid will rendezvous with the Malahat, the Lillehorne, or other ships of Rum Row. The unnamed cargo is Canadian liquor in wooden crates and burlap bags
Chief's Log Books made available for photography by the Vancouver Archives.
Below, Captain Burridge listed his crew, including second engineer Brereton Hoodspith and Norman Hall, Ordinary Seaman. "Conduct, Character, Qualifications" of the crewmen are not specified except for Norman Hall: "VG"-- "Very Good."
During the voyage, another Master and another Chief Engineer joined the crew "at sea." Below, they've added their names and details to the entries by each of the Chief's personnel. Captain Burridge's age is 31; Second Engineer Hoodspith is youngest at 19; Cook Charles Shields is oldest at 41.
Burridge's birthplace is London, UK; he lives at 3256 3rd Ave W, Vancouver. His previous vessel was the Rosebank, and he began his employment on the Chief Skugaid on the day of departure, 26 January 1932.
Brereton Hoodspith lives at 424 N Ingleton Ave, Burnaby [not Vancouver]; this is his "First" vessel.
A.E. Gough is only 26, but already has a ship's Master (captain) certificate. He lives at 4778 Drummond in Vancouver's upscale West Point Grey district overlooking Spanish Banks. His previous vessel was the Ray Roberts, another rumrunner, and he joined the Chief "at sea" on 3 May 1932.
Burridge's birthplace is London, UK; he lives at 3256 3rd Ave W, Vancouver. His previous vessel was the Rosebank, and he began his employment on the Chief Skugaid on the day of departure, 26 January 1932.
Brereton Hoodspith lives at 424 N Ingleton Ave, Burnaby [not Vancouver]; this is his "First" vessel.
A.E. Gough is only 26, but already has a ship's Master (captain) certificate. He lives at 4778 Drummond in Vancouver's upscale West Point Grey district overlooking Spanish Banks. His previous vessel was the Ray Roberts, another rumrunner, and he joined the Chief "at sea" on 3 May 1932.
Below, ship's personnel signed off at the end of the voyage and confirmed their pay. The two Masters were paid "as per agreement" with the owners. We haven't yet found any records of a Master's pay. Most personnel were paid for the full length of the nine-month voyage, which ended back in Vancouver on 17 October 1932. Remembering that this is the vessel's "official" log, not the one detailing liquor transactions, the crew's base pay as listed below was presumably fairly standard for a nine-month voyage: Chief Engineers $175, Mate and 2nd Engineer $135, Cook $70, Deckhand $40.
For three of the crew the voyage ended "At Sea." Deckhand Norman Hall, 21, left the Chief on February 13th, and Captain Burridge and Chief Engineer Frederick Sailes left on May 3rd. The cryptic reason for their departure is given as "MC"--perhaps "Medical Condition"? But the handwriting appears to be Captain Burridge's.
For three of the crew the voyage ended "At Sea." Deckhand Norman Hall, 21, left the Chief on February 13th, and Captain Burridge and Chief Engineer Frederick Sailes left on May 3rd. The cryptic reason for their departure is given as "MC"--perhaps "Medical Condition"? But the handwriting appears to be Captain Burridge's.
Below, an entry in the Log for the morning of Thursday, October 13th, describes an emergency:
"8:15AM Broke tail shaft in Moderate SE Gale. Vessel drifting in distress and in need of assistance.
"...12:30 PM Fishing Vessel Chancellor of Tacoma took us in tow for San Juan (Port Renfrew)."
These entries were written and signed by the new Master, young Captain A.E. Gough, and witnessed by the Mate, Jeoffrey Baker.
"8:15AM Broke tail shaft in Moderate SE Gale. Vessel drifting in distress and in need of assistance.
"...12:30 PM Fishing Vessel Chancellor of Tacoma took us in tow for San Juan (Port Renfrew)."
These entries were written and signed by the new Master, young Captain A.E. Gough, and witnessed by the Mate, Jeoffrey Baker.
Even with a tow by the Chancellor, there was still trouble in bad weather that night.
At 12:30AM on the morning of the 14th, Captain Gough wrote:
"Fishing vessel [the Chancellor] unable to tow us across Straits of Juan de Fuca in rough, confused sea & swell. Agreed to tow our vessel to William Head or Victoria."
At 11:30 AM:
"Met Ray Roberts and the Ray Roberts assisted towing...."
At 2PM "arrived William Head Quarantine Station. Let go Fishboat Chancellor and.... Proceeded to Vancouver in tow of Ray Roberts."
The emergency has ended, but the Ship's Log has more to say about personnel changes aboard the Chief Skugaid on that Mexican voyage. Please check back for updates...
At 12:30AM on the morning of the 14th, Captain Gough wrote:
"Fishing vessel [the Chancellor] unable to tow us across Straits of Juan de Fuca in rough, confused sea & swell. Agreed to tow our vessel to William Head or Victoria."
At 11:30 AM:
"Met Ray Roberts and the Ray Roberts assisted towing...."
At 2PM "arrived William Head Quarantine Station. Let go Fishboat Chancellor and.... Proceeded to Vancouver in tow of Ray Roberts."
The emergency has ended, but the Ship's Log has more to say about personnel changes aboard the Chief Skugaid on that Mexican voyage. Please check back for updates...
Media and the Malahat
Below, a frontpage item from the San Diego (Calif.) Union, 27 June 1926.
Some Malahat Crewmen: Activists Against Prohibition, 1932,
--And Malahat in 1934, "Under Arrest" in Vancouver:
Photo is uncaptioned-- from Hugh 'Red' Garling's collection at the RUMRUNNER pub in Sidney, BC.
The MALAHAT in Vancouver about 1934, after her rum-running adventures (see film above). With different owners and captains, she had returned unsuccessfully to transporting lumber. Owing money to her crew, she was "arrested" and put up for sale. Gibson Brothers Logging paid Reifel $2500, removed the masts, and turned her into a log barge for the old-growth sitka spruce they were cutting in what was then still called the Queen Charlotte Islands. The capacious MALAHAT brought the logs to mills in Powell River on the Sunshine Coast. In 1944, the giant vessel foundered in Barkley Sound and was towed to Powell River to become part of the breakwater. Photo courtesy Vancouver Archives, Walter E Frost fonds, AM1506-S3-2-: CVA 447-2426.1
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