Prince Edward County Podcast #4 -- Rum-Runners Edition

The first great economic boom for the County began during the period of the American Civil War. A punitive tax on whisky made beer a more popular choice in the U.S. American brewers considered the County's barley the best in the world, and thousands of shiploads sailed across Lake Ontario to the harbours of New York state.
This era was called Barley Days, and it brought prosperity to Prince Edward County -- until 1890 when the U.S. government introduced a tariff to protect American farmers from imports. Overnight, the price of barley plunged and Barley Days were over.

Thirty years later, in 1920, prohibition was introduced in the United States, and until 1933 the manufacturing, importing, exporting and selling of alcohol in the U.S. was illegal.  It was the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, and  a group of  enterprising -- and reckless -- County residents were more than willing to come to the aid of their thirsty American cousins.

In our Rum-Running edition, C.W. Hunt describes where the booze came from, and  one smuggler's hair-raising encounter with the U.S. Coast Guard. Then, Janet tells the tale of Main Duck Island and how one Milford family indirectly benefited from rum-running.

Please download the podcast here.

Running time: 16:08                File size: 7.9 MB

Music credits:   

Bix Beiderbecke, Singin' the blues
Louis Armstrong & his Hot Seven, Potatohead Blues