A recently-opened temperance exhibit at the Wellington County Museum here might leave some patrons dry after exploring the 1920s and 1930s prohibition era.
Curatorial assistant Amy Dunlop said the exhibit explores those who rallied around the temperance banner, those who took part in illegal sales, and the ways some residents secured liquor during prohibition in Canada. It also features some of the ingenious ways liquor was smuggled across the border into the U.S., where it fetched considerable money for those involved in the trade, and some of the crude equipment used to produce homemade liquor.
Dunlop said records contained in the travelling exhibit, on loan from the Peterborough Centennial Museum and Archives, show illegal liquor sales generated between $5 million and $23 million in sales.
The Ontario Temperance Act was a law passed in Ontario in 1916 to prohibit the sale of alcohol. A similar act was enacted in the U.S., with prohibition running from 1920 to 1933.
Indeed Fergus was known as a dry community thanks to the efforts of the Beatty family, known for its dislike of booze and the frivolous lifestyles associated with drinking. The family, owners of Beatty Bros. the town’s largest employer at the time, was known for hiring people who were active churchgoers and who equally opposed alcohol consumption.
“Martha Beatty was very into the prohibition movement with her church group,” Dunlop said of the Beatty family member who spearheaded the local temperance league.
Museum volunteer and historian Eric Huber is adding some of his historical finds to the exhibit. Huber says his historical artifacts show how people secured booze during prohibition. And he is quick to speculate about a scenario that saw many local residents procure booze for themselves using signed doctor prescriptions, train tickets, ham (amateur) radio licences, and pharmacy receipts.
Many of the doctor prescriptions Huber picked up at a second-hand store in Guelph were written by a doctor in Harriston.
According to Huber the doctor would get a ham radio message about a resident wanting to see him for an appointment. With train travel the main mode of transportation, Huber also secured train tickets in the historical collection he purchased for an undisclosed price.
Resident would make the train trip to Harriston, get a prescription and have it filled at the local pharmacy before making the trip back home. One prescription for a Mr. Fife from Harriston provided six-ounces of whiskey for $1.20. It’s difficult to read the names of the doctor or pharmacist on the prescriptions, but Dunlop believes it was filled by a George Marrison.
Huber said the purchase was for personal use only because there was not enough alcohol to be resold.
He speculated the doctor who prescribed the alcohol may have been less than reputable and for that reason Harriston shows up on many of the prescriptions.
“The doctor was probably easy to get the booze from,” said Huber. He has also donated a liquor flask to the exhibit which was filled with the prescribed amount of alcohol when the pharmacist filled the prescription. It was known as the prescription bottle, according to Huber, and would show the alcohol was obtained legally.
The exhibit also features information on “speakeasies” where liquor was sold under the table at outlets with a less-than-desirable reputation.
“They were dingy types of establishments often in basements,” Dunlop said of the illegal drinking establishments.
“Rum alley”
Much of the illegal alcohol trade ran through “rum alley” between Windsor and Detroit, where truck and carloads of illegal booze were taken across the border into the U.S.
For the individual bootlegger, there were other ways to get illegal booze across the border in small quantities. Included in the exhibit is a hollow walking stick in which vials of booze were placed. The bootlegger could simply cross the border using the stick and then sell the booze.
Huber’s find has prompted him to explore alcohol and its place in society and he has picked up alcohol rationing books from the Second World War he hopes will some day become part of an exhibit.
“My feeling is this is stuff people should see,” Huber said of the contributions from his collection. “It shouldn’t be kept under lock and key.”
The exhibit, known as The Noble Experiment: Temperance and Prohibition, opened in mid-January and runs until June. Admission is by donation. The exhibit is open weekdays from 9:30am to 4:30pm, and 12 to 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
