The Barber & Miss Sealy Part 3: The 1920s - A Decade of Prohibition

Frank Farnham Scott (1894-1961)

Gertrude Selma Sealy (1892-1986)

maternal grandparents

 

My grandparents, Frank Scott and Gertrude Sealy Scott, lived in tumultuous times. Between 1916, the year they were married, and 1928, they experienced two unprece- dented global events – a world war and a pandemic. Against that backdrop, the issues of prohibition and woman suffrage were causing turmoil in the United States as supporters fought for constitutional amendments.

This post provides some background on why Prohibition became the law of the land and the impact it had on the country. There are also some amusing stories from the Chautauqua County region and nearby McKean County, Pennsylvania, with an added bonus of my grandmother's recipe for dandelion wine.

 

– SPEAKEASIES, BOOTLEGGERS, AND ORGANIZED CRIME –

 

The 18^th Amendment to the Constitution went into effect on January 17, 1920, prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquor. While it seemed like a good idea at the time, it soon became apparent that denying alcohol to the public created some serious problems.

Citizens were not about to readily give up liquor or the social life that often accompanied it, so they found creative ways to make their own alcohol now that distilleries and breweries were out of business. Some used dried grapes to make alcohol, while others set up stills both large and small. 

Speakeasies - establishments where people could eat, socialize, dance, and buy illegally sold alcoholic beverages - became popular. They were usually disguised as innocuous businesses, requiring a password or secret knock to be admitted. The fact that many normal, law-abiding citizens began to engage in low-level criminal activity during Prohibition was only one of the repercussions of the law; the other was much more serious. It was the beginning of organized crime. 

A moonshine whiskey still in Miami, Florida - circa 1925. (Florida Memory)

 

The ban on alcohol, a highly sought-after commodity, caused a significant increase in crime since gangs viewed bootlegging as a lucrative business opportunity. It was during this time that gangs began to organize their criminal activity by coordinating methods to avoid the law. Multitudes of officials and politicians were bribed, moonshine was made in large, hidden stills, and smugglers were hired to transport liquor into the United States. 

 

For example, liquor illegally imported from Canada was carried across Lake Ontario and down the Hudson River to supply tens of thousands of speakeasies in New York City. The Mayfield Road Gang supplied speakeasies in Cleveland using speedboats to zig zag across Lake Erie, dodging authorities as they traveled from Canada. (History.com) Undoubtedly, other cities on the lake, such as Erie, Buffalo, and even lakeside towns in Chautauqua County benefited, as well.

 

Prohibition officers raid a restaurant in Washington, D.C., circa 1923. (Library of Congress)

Government men destroying 749 cases (18,000 bottles) of beer transported from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress)

 

– GANGSTERS & RUM RUNNERS –

One of the most recognizable names of this era is Al “Scarface” Capone of Chicago. Capone’s gang was responsible for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre that took place in Chicago in 1929, where several members of his gang dressed as police officers and gunned down seven members of a rival gang. Capone had an airtight alibi – he was hosting a huge party at his Palm Island estate in Miami Beach. 

 

Not surprisingly, when he purchased the $40,000 estate from the mayor’s real-estate company prior to 1928, the residents of Palm Island went to work to oust Capone from the island. After the City Council passed a resolution to do so, the mayor would not enforce it saying Capone was “no worse than a lot of others down here." (History.com, D Roos) The mayor was just one of many corrupt public officials throughout the country that dealt with the mob.

 

An aerial view looking east across Biscayne Bay, Miami Beach, Florida, circa 1922. Islands shown (L-R): Flagler Island, Star Island, Hibiscus Island, and Palm Island. The Collins Bridge (renamed the Venetian Causeway in 1925) is in the foreground and the County Causeway is at the far right. Notice the absence of skyscrapers. (Florida Memory)

As populations and tourist trade grew in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and other coastal areas of southern Florida during the 1920s, so did bootlegging. It was, after all, a most profitable business. Miami became a city with an underworld teeming with mobsters, crooked public officials, and rum runners who were aggressively pursued by the U.S. Coast Guard as it attempted to keep bootleg alcohol out of South Florida. (Miami New Times, Sun Sentinel)

Gertrude “Cleo” Lythgoe was a notorious female bootlegger who operated in the Caribbean and along the Florida coast. A licensed American liquor wholesaler, Cleo moved to the Bahamas at the beginning of Prohibition. By using her connections in the liquor trade to import high-quality Scotch from Scotland, she was able to start a successful rum running operation that lasted until 1925, when one of her boats was seized by authorities. Cleo was arrested but her subsequent trial somehow faded away and disappeared – not uncommon if you were a woman and had money for bribes. Cleo wisely quit the business after her run-in with the law. (Huff Post)    

Federal agents inspect barrels captured from a rum runner circa 1924. (Library of Congress)

 

 

– LOCAL TALES FROM THE PROHIBITION ERA –

But what of my grandparents during Prohibition? Even though Grandpa and Grandma lived in a small city in mostly rural Chautauqua County, the county and surrounding area was no different than almost anywhere else in the country. Bootlegging was alive and well everywhere. A good example of this is found in McKean County, Pennsylvania, which shares its northern border with Cattaraugus County, the New York county immediately to the east of Chautauqua County. 

McKean County is home to the small town of Bradford. It's similar to Chautauqua County in that it is mostly rural. Despite its country-like setting, bootlegging was rampant during Prohibition, supplying farmers, villagers, and city dwellers alike with beer, whiskey, and other intoxicating beverages. 

The following are excerpts from articles that appeared in the McKean County Democrat, Bradford, Pennsylvania in 1923. The first article is an interesting and somewhat amusing account of an unfortunate bootlegger who was apprehended by New York State Troopers. It seems that some of his loyal customers were from Jamestown in Chautauqua County, in addition to Olean and Salamanca in Cattaraugus County. Authorities seized the man’s car, along with his order book, which turned out to be a gold mine for them.

 

 

Published May 10, 1923:

                  This order book, according to State Trooper Edwards, is very interesting for it

            contains the record of orders taken by the bootlegger since 1919 to the present

            time. In it are the names of residents of Bradford, Olean, Salamanca, James-

            town, Hornell, and other New York towns who are steady customers of said 

            bootlegger. Back of the name of the customer in the book is the amount 

            ordered in cases, half barrels, barrels and so on. There are therefore a large

            number of people in nearby New York towns and cities who will miss the active 

            little bootlegger, and they, too, will have to go thirsty, which will be sad after 

            receiving all they wished, according to the order book, since 1919.

            (Smethport History)

Bradford, McKean County, Pennsylvania with my arrows. (Google Maps 2020)

 

The same unfortunate bootlegger was not a master of concealment, either. The article goes on to say:

 

              They learned that the Bradford man had rented a deserted house from a Lime-

              stone man and in it stored his beer. The house is located on the west side of 

              the town on the same street on which the hotels and stores are located only 

              beyond the railroad tracks. The troopers looked into the windows of the house 

              and saw at a glance the barrels piled high on top of each other.

              (Smethport History)

 

Limestone, New York has always been a small place with a population of around 400. During Prohibition it served as an unassuming, yet convenient spot for this man’s bootlegging operation, given that it lies just over the state line only six miles north of Bradford. The man's problem was that he evidently didn’t know how useful window shades could be. 

This article about a speakeasy, also from the McKean County Democrat, is quoted in its entirety.

Published July 23, 1923:

 

                     The Bradford police made a raid last Sunday on a speakeasy conducted by

              Mrs. Frances Cosilito on Roberts street [sic]. They found about fifty guests 

              who were busily engaged in imbibing beer. The police gathered in 19 of the 

              guests and the landlady. At the hearing Monday morning the guests on the 

              occasion were discharged. Mrs. Cosilito was fined $15, which she promptly 

              paid. (Smethport History)

 

[Fifteen dollars in 1923 is about $228 in 2021.]

For some quick but entertaining reading about McKean County and its bootleggers, go to the Smethport History website. The stories illustrate how Prohibition made for wild times in some small towns, but perhaps not as wild as things were about a century prior.   

 

– WHISKEY: THE ALL-PURPOSE BEVERAGE –

Prohibition was the result of the temperance movement which began in the 1820s, a reaction to what many believed to be the excessive use of intoxicating liquors. It was not an unreasonable conclusion, given that farmers had their whiskey jugs with them as they worked their fields. Whiskey was in ample supply at corn huskings, log rollings, house raisings, and social gatherings. Family members took a swig from the jug to whet their appetites before breakfast. Whiskey was used medicinally, and it would warm you in winter and cool you in summer. Making a purchase but out of cash? Not a problem during this era. Just pay for your purchase with whiskey.

All manner of people partook of it – farmers, tradesmen, ministers and judges. In fact, when the grand jury of Chautauqua County adopted new bylaws in June 1827, the first one agreed upon was, “That the foreman of the jury pay one bottle of brandy for the honor of his seat.” The second bylaw was, “That the secretary also pay one bottle. (History of Chautauqua County, A. Young, 142-143) Most towns had a distillery in those days since whiskey was in such high demand. The town of Fredonia apparently had a shocking distillery per person ratio, however. According to an article in The Fredonia Censor published April 9, 1884, “between 1813 and 1826 there were at least eight for a population of some 3,000. (Chautauqua County Historian) That works out to one distillery for every 375 people.

I don’t know what my grandparents’ positions were on Prohibition, but I do know that if Grandma had been inclined to make an alcoholic beverage, she wouldn’t have needed a distillery. One day when I was about twenty or so, I stopped in to see her. When Grandma answered the door I noticed she looked a bit flushed, so I asked if she was feeling all right. She told me she’d been sipping some dandelion wine she made. I didn’t know wine could be made from dandelions, so I tried a little – it was sweet and potent. Below is my copy of her recipe; even though I always intended to make it I never did.

A copy of my grandmother's recipe for dandelion wine ca.1970.

– THE BAD OUTWEIGHS THE GOOD –

Prohibition in the U.S. began nearly a century after the temperance movement was founded. Although it was meant to decrease poverty, drunkenness, and crime, among other things, in many cases Prohibition had the opposite effect. People still spent a considerable amount of money on alcohol. Law-abiding citizens became criminals by buying beer and other bootleg liquor; they also broke the law by going to speakeasies to drink and socialize. The people that were already in gangs coordinated their operations, giving birth to organized crime and crime syndicates. These, along with other factors, resulted in a decrease in support for Prohibition as the 1920s ended. 

 

 

Marchers in Detroit with signs reading, “Beer for Taxation, Jobs for Millions,” circa 1930.

(Wayne State University, Walter P. Reuther Library)

It wasn’t until the country was brought to its knees by the Great Depression, that the government began to seriously consider the repeal of the 18^th Amendment. It was losing billions of dollars in much needed tax revenue, while gangsters raked in billions from illegal operations and tax evasion on their earnings.

The November 1932 presidential election finally determined the fate of Prohibition. When Franklin D. Roosevelt declared he would end Prohibition if elected, it turned public opinion in his favor; he beat Herbert Hoover in a landslide. The passage of the 21^st Amendment on December 5, 1933, fulfilled FDR’s promise, thus opening one path toward dealing with the ravages of the Great Depression through increased tax revenue from the sale of alcohol.  

NEXT: The Barber & Miss Sealy Part 4 – The Vote (posted December 2021)

 

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 Bradish-Scott Family History - August 2021