Tales from the young life of a Jersey shore rum runner
The night was blacker than coal.
No ambient light thrown off by the glitz of Atlantic City’s casinos, nor a glimmer from headlights on the Parkway, since the existence of both were decades away.
And because there were no lunar beams, the seascape was shrouded in a veil so dark that not even a hand in front of your face could be seen.
And that’s exactly how the crew of the 45-foot speedboat liked it. Moon? No. Moonshine? Cases of it. By the hundreds.
This is Atlantic City, 1930, and the “noble experiment” of Prohibition was the law of the land.
For Jake, a 14-year-old kid whose father had sud- denly died, school was no longer an option. His Germanborn mother cooked for the staff at legendary Hackney’s restaurant, but it wasn’t enough to support her three children.
So, without hesitation, Jake set out to find work — no easy task since the Great Depression had up-ended the American economy.
With the seasoned street smarts of someone twice his age, Jake instinctively knew how to bring home “boatloads” of cash.
All he had to do was walk three blocks to the boatyard.
•••
Jake is my grandfather. A number of years ago, he passed away after living a life straight out of a Hollywood movie. But his memory lives on, stirring me to think of his Errol Flynn-like exploits every time I gaze at Atlantic City.
For most of his life, Jake was reluctant to talk about the “old days,” perhaps not wanting his grandchildren and great-grandchildren thinking he prided himself on breaking the law, which included outrunning and outsmarting the “Coasties” who were always in hot pursuit.
But on one occasion, after much pressure, he relented, and began divulging his own fascinating part in America’s ban on liquor.
•••
His eyes, swollen almost shut by sun and salt water, were sharp as an eagle’s, and they had to be.
When you’re a helmsman plying the frigid waters of New Jersey in the dead of winter, every detail, every nuance, every feature of sea and land must be observed and acted upon at a moment’s notice.
The alternative was a trip straight to Davey Jones’ locker through body-numbing 35-degree water.
“The winter swells are larger, and the spray slamming your face forms icicles on your eyelashes. But it was part of the job.”
Of course, Jake is nothing if not understated. To him, 9-foot swells were merely a “healthy chop.”
Now imagine navigating those towering walls of cresting water in pitch dark. But to the rum runners, it was simply business-as-usual.
“All of our boats were in Gardner’s Basin. Our crew had to be top notch, because the other option was unthinkable. After every run, the engines were removed and completely overhauled. But we owned another set so we’d always have fresh horsepower for the next trip.
“And later, to stay one step ahead of the Coast Guard, we even used airplane engines. Boy, she flew with those babies!”
In describing every detail, the passion exuded by Jake was palpable.
But it wasn’t just about speed. “First, before we could even think about the run out to the ships — they were Canadian freighters — we had to cross the (sand)bar, and let me tell you, that wasn’t easy even in daylight.
“After that, we’d make our way 12 miles offshore, camouflaged by total darkness, and into international waters to rendezvous with the supply vessel.
“Remember, we had no radar, no LORAN, and no GPS.
“We had to find our target the old-fashioned way while under constant threat of being seen by both Coasties and Canadian customs agents.
“And remember something, when the booze was being offloaded, the freighter had small lights on, so the threat of being intercepted was real.”
The transfer of booze was anything but routine, as the moving of liquor from freighter to boat was arguably the most dangerous part of their mission.
“Keep in mind, you’re a toy next to those steamers,” Jakes says. “Laying alongside her while cargo is being loaded, you’re praying to God that the freighter doesn’t crush you while rolling on the swells. For us, that was the scariest part.”
No matter how big the rum runners’ engines were, however, their boats could never outrun the Coast Guard when loaded down with whiskey.
But with the precision of a crack military unit, the smugglers employed a slew of tricks, deceptions and countermeasures designed to get them, and their liquid gold, safely to the drop-off point.
I asked him about the return trip and how they evaded detection and capture.
“We would constantly change our route back to shore; predictability would get you caught, or killed. So if we left out of Absecon Inlet, we might return through Great Egg Inlet and navigate the backwaters from there.”
It boggles the mind how they actually navigated the back bays.
Since running lights or spotlights were out of the question, they had to rely on experience and memory of the channels to avoid going hard aground.
And as anyone familiar with South Jersey’s back bays — where currents and storms can instantly shift depths without warning — can attest, running aground is easy to do in daylight, let alone at night.
Even today, parts of the Intracoastal Waterway’s navigable channels are so shallow at low tide that boats with drafts far less than fully-loaded rum runners routinely run aground, even with on-going dredging.
The Coast Guard often hid near smuggling routes, lying in wait for a passing rum boat before launching an all-out pursuit.
“One of our favorite moves while being chased was using the zig-zag trick. We’d have guys pay out rope on each zig, hoping that it would foul the props of the chase boat. It worked really well,” Jake said, allowing himself a chuckle.
Of course, despite the romanticized view of rum runners, they weren’t always successful.
“There was the Hiawatha, one of the fastest boats in the fleet. One night she was being chased and couldn’t shake her pursuers. In the chaos of wild maneuvering, she ran aground on a back bay sandbar. But rather than risk confiscation of a boat that the Coast Guard would turn around and use against us, the crew opened the petcocks, flooding the boat with gasoline. Then they lit a match and she went up in flames.”
Dropping off the cargo was fraught with danger, too. Not only did the rum runners have to be wary of law enforcement, but hijackers as well. On one particular night, Jake found that out the hard way.
“For obvious reasons, we always made the transfer in remote places. We had just finished loading the cases onto the truck, and I jumped in the cab for the ride. A little way down the rough dirt road — and “road” is being kind — we came up on a roadblock.
“Another truck had completely blocked our path. In front were several dark figures with machine guns pointed straight at us.
“We had all heard the stories of similar encounters which didn’t turn out well, so yeah, I was scared as hell,” he continued. “I’ll never forget looking down the barrel of that machine gun as it was pressed against my forehead. Thankfully, the hijackers told us that no one needed to get hurt, and ordered us to turn around and walk away. Which we gladly did.”
It was a case of the thief holding up a robber.
“What could we do? Go to the police?”
Jake bellowed, laughing at his predicament, while reflecting on how close his call really was.
In addition to docks, the moonshiners devised ingenious drop-off sites.
“There were houses built on stilts out in the bay, with boat slips underneath. It made for a convenient place to discreetly unload through a hatch in the house floor, giving us cover. The network was unbelievable.”
Yes, it surely was. So were the times.
Prohibition, more than any other event in United States’ history, contributed to the rise of the mob and organized crime.
But to be a real-life swashbuckler making history — rather than just passing through it — and forever becoming part of folklore, myth and legend — is truly a legacy for the ages.
And one in which Jake can be justifiably proud.