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Originally published in the Historic Nantucket, Winter 1993/1994 (Vol. 41, No. 4; incorrectly labeled Vol. 43, No. 4), p. 60-62

 

A Slightly Irreverent View of One of Our More Raffish Legacies.

Nantucket: 90 Proof
By Douglas K. Burch

Our island's heritage is not so different from that of the rest of America, at least in the broad view. A little older, perhaps, and there's not much sea-going tradition in Nebraska, but the major trends and forces which influenced the shaping of our nation affected Nantucket, too.

What makes Nantucket's particular version of history so attractive is the slightly off center, quirky - some might say eccentric - way the island reacted to those seminal forces that are either ponderously treated or totally ignored in conventional texts.

A fairly recent example of Nantucket's way of coping with one such major historical and sociological episode is found in a few anecdotes from the Prohibition years.

The island's reaction to the Volstead Act was not unlike that of the nation as a whole, but did have its own unique character. Nantucket's tiny section of the vast panorama of Prohibition days adds a pleasantly salty tang to that legendary era of the flapper and the sheik, the frantic, carefree time so well chronicled by F. Scott Fitzgerald and exemplified by the likes of Rudolf Valentino, Theda Bara, and Clara Bow. Back in those halcyon days Coatue, the extremely fragile barrier beach that creates Nantucket Harbor and is, today, the home of the Least Tern and the most poison ivy, was home to some pretty heady goings on.

Many Nantucketers remember with affection Tunning's Shore Dinner and Dancing Establishment, a palatial pavilion spread upon the sands of First Point. The owners of a small fleet of catboats and naphtha launches found the ferrying of Tunning's patrons back and forth from First Point to the Town Pier to be a lucrative as well as humanitarian occupation.

Tunning's prospered right up until Christmastime in 1933 when the Twenty-First Amendment, repealing Prohibition, became the law of the land. That redoubtable Shore Dinner and Dancing Establishment disappeared shortly thereafter, gone but not forgotten.

The recollections of some of our venerable neighbors lead to the inevitable conclusion that this date of decease was more than coincidental. It seems that many of Tunning's "shore dinners" were somewhat less substantial in texture than a good quahog chowder, but certainly as well-received and appreciated.

Because of its fortuitous location roughly thirty miles at sea, Nantucket proved to be an unusually attractive port of call for Prohibition era rumrunners, whose boats were the SSTs of the day. Franklin Chase recalls one day in 1928 when he was strolling along the Island Service dock and became fascinated by a "... long, low vessel tied alongside. She was completely covered inside with steel plates, but I wouldn't say they were bullet proof. She had patches on both sides where a one-pounder had gone clear through. The 'Dry Navy' were tending to their business over on Straight Wharf, not paying any attention to this boat. She was seventy feet long and powered by three 400 horsepower Liberty engines. They had been working on those engines and were preparing to take her out on a trial run. They invited me aboard and I accepted at once. We rounded Brant Point and then they cut in the third engine. That boat jumped ahead so fast that I sat right down on the deck. We rounded the buoy and came back in at a respectable speed, but that was one ride I'll not forget."

Mr. Chase explained that these speedy boats would rendezvous with large freighters, known as "mother ships," which stood on station just outside the three-mile limit, and take off some of the mother ship's illicit cargo for transport to shore transfer points, outrunning the "Dry Navy," as the Coast Guard was affectionately called.

He also remembers more than one occasion when a mother ship hung up on one of the shoals that surround our island and had to jettison a portion of her cargo in order to lighten ship and get free of the shoal. Chase recalls that there were quite a few scallopers who dredged up some pretty good tows once in a while.

Massachusetts was the last of the 46 states to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment, the infamous Volstead Act which foisted Prohibition upon our forebears. Two sister states, Connecticut and Rhode Island, never did okay that paragon of legislative paranoia. Nantucket County, characteristically, was among the last of the Commonwealth's precincts to give its approval to that misguided manifesto, and then only following a couple of carefully monitored recounts accompanied by some fairly fiery debating, which threatened irreparable schisms within this small community.

A contemporary commentator summed up the situation: "Nantucket is a dry town and will continue to vote dry just so long as its citizens are sober enough to stagger to the polls."

By the time the pall of Prohibition had cast its shadow upon the land, Nantucket was well into its fourth decade as a favored summering spot. The island's salubrious climate, special ambience, and unique charm, then as now, attracted summer visitors from the sweltering cities. The famed artists' colony in 'Sconset was in full flower then, and flowers must be irrigated during dry spells if they are to continue to flourish. Therefore, many of 'Sconset's seasonal residents brought stocks of "the nectar of the gods" with them, along with their summer clothes and sporting gear. The tales of steamer trunks weighing almost as much as the steamer itself emitting fascinating gurgling sounds while being off loaded from the arriving boats are many, and very probably accurate.

A typical tale concerns a spanking new Hudson touring car that labored off the boat one summer afternoon in 1927 and made it almost to the corner of Broad and Federal streets before its rear axle collapsed under the weight of its cargo of twenty-three cases of wine and whiskey.

One returning seasonal resident, on opening his house for the summer, discovered that the well-stocked cellar he had left behind now contained only dusty shelves. Not one to quietly accept disaster, he investigated the matter and found an incriminating empty bottle in the possession of a nearby handyman. He pressed charges and the poor miscreant was brought to court, then located on the third floor of the Pacific Club, to stand trial for his heinous crime. The official transcript of the case makes interesting reading:

Q: Is this the bottle you had when you were apprehended?

A: Yep.

Q: When did the bottle become empty?

A: When I finished it.

Q: When was that?

A: When I took the last drink.

Q: Then what did you do with the bottle?

A: I carried it around and took occasional smells from it during the-week.

The judge found the defendant not guilty for lack of corroborating evidence.

Tunning's-like establishments relied upon the import of basic supplies by blockade runners and bootleggers, but local endeavor also contributed to assuaging the island's thirst. One of the most sophisticated moonshine distilleries in the records of the FBI was unearthed - literally - right here in 1932. The G-Men found a subterranean manufactory ten feet square and seven feet high excavated beneath the pinelands adjoining the Polpis Road near what is today the Windswept Cranberry Bog. Fully planked, floored, and timbered, this temple of the distiller's art was equipped with a kerosene stove, a copper boiler, several barrels of fermenting mash, and a thirty-foot deep well. Access was gained through a trapdoor neatly concealed beneath a layer of dirt and newly planted pine trees. The feds ultimately dismantled this clandestine cookery, which by then had become a tourist attraction of no small repute. Nary a trace remains today except in the memories of a few of Nantucket's senior citizens.

While islanders continued dependent upon imports for most of life's necessities, from time to time Mother Nature lent a hand. Case in point: the wreck of the Canadian schooner Waldo L. Stream off Muskeget Island on December 26, 1924. The lifesaving crew on station at Muskeget saved the unfortunate vessel's crew and cargo of 2,295 cases of Scotch whisky -although not necessarily in that order -without a single fatality. The cargo was stored in the station's equipment shed and locked away. Island initiative prevailed, however, and one bright and sunny morning a few days later a hole was discovered in the back of the shed and every last drop of the Stream's cargo was gone. No clue to its ultimate fate was ever found.

While Nantucket's experiences with "The Great Experiment" lack much of the bravura and melodramatics associated with Eliot Ness and the Untouchables and all those other off-islanders who made headlines during that turbulent era, the quietly pragmatic, tolerant, and slightly amused attitude that marked the manner in which Nantucketers coped with the events of the time seem typical of the well-known "Nantucket Way."