Part 13

It was openly rumored that the merchants in Troy and Albany were hiring gangs to bring foreign goods into the country in this fashion. Some Customs officers tried to stop the traffic, though most were in sympathy with the smugglers. In one case a Customs officer leaped aboard a smuggling craft to seize the cargo and arrest the crew. He was carried across the boundary line, and then dumped unceremoniously overboard in water which, fortunately, reached only to his chin.

One method of getting Vermont goods across the border into Canada was this: dozens of wagons or sleds would be loaded with barrels of pork, flour, and other commodities. They would be driven to a hillside point on the American side of the border. A hut would be built in such a way that, when a stone was kicked from the foundation, the hut would collapse, the floor would tilt and the contents would roll down the slope of the hill into Canada, where men were waiting to receive it. Who was guilty of smuggling if barrels of merchandise, of their own momentum, suddenly rolled across the border into Canada?

Many Vermonters, however, applauded the action of the President and supported Customs Collector Penniman in his efforts to halt the illegal trade across the border. A group of citizens in Franklin County publicly applauded the action of the President and the Collector. They said that the lumber and potash merchants were determined to carry on their “nefarious schemes” of smuggling by armed force if necessary and that threats had been made to kill the Collector if he attempted to enforce the laws. There were hints also of a citizens’ agreement for an uprising if any troops should kill anyone in the process of law enforcement.

Soldiers were stationed along the border at Windmill Point on the western shore of Alburg under the command of Major Charles K. Williams, who later was to become Governor of Vermont. The Customs officers themselves had a twelve-oared cutter called The Fly, which they used near the outlet of the lake to intercept smuggling operations.

One of the most famous of the boats used by the smugglers was known throughout the area as the Black Snake. This boat was originally built for ferry service between Charlotte and Essex, New York. It was 40 feet long, 17 feet wide, and had seven oars on each side in addition to a sail. After being smeared with tar, the boat was almost invisible at night. It was said to have a capacity of 100 barrels of ashes, and for a single run across the border the owners received $5,000 to $6,000.

The Black Snake would sneak into St. Albans Bay at night, take on a cargo of potash, and then slip through various creeks and inlets into Missisquoi Bay, across Cook’s Bay, and into Canada at a point about one mile north of Alburg Springs.

Customs officers tried without success for months to halt the operations of the Black Snake. At last, in August, 1808, government officials detailed Lt. Daniel Farrington, Sgt. David D. Johnson, and twelve infantry privates to board the Customs boat, The Fly. Their orders were to pursue the Black Snake until its capture.

On the night of August 2, the Black Snake moved into the Onion River to take on a cargo of potash. The commander of the craft was Truman Mudgett of Highgate, a burly, thick-chested man whose defiance of the Customs officers had made his craft famous.

Mudgett knew that The Fly was in the area seeking his hiding place, and throughout the night he and his crew oiled and tested their rifles at their camp site on the bank of the river. They also test-fired their small artillery piece, a gun 8 feet long with a bore of 1¼ inches which fired fifteen 16-ounce slugs of lead. They had long poles for fending off a boarding party, 3-foot-long clubs, and baskets filled with stones the size of a man’s fist.

The poles were to be used first to prevent anyone boarding the Black Snake. If this did not succeed, then the crew were to use the clubs and stones. As a last resort, they were to defend themselves with the guns.

At daybreak on August 3, a lookout came racing to the camp to warn the smugglers that The Fly was moving up the Onion River. Within a few minutes the revenue cutter came into view and closed on the Black Snake.

Mudgett shouted at Lieutenant Farrington: “I’ll blow the first man through who lays his hand on the Snake!”

Farrington coolly ignored the warning. He leaped from The Fly onto the Black Snake and ordered Sergeant Johnson to come aboard with six men and commandeer the outlaw craft.

“You’ll never get out of this river alive,” shouted Mudgett as he turned and ran back into the woods to rejoin his men.

Farrington sent four soldiers ashore to search for the crew of the Black Snake and then he returned to the helm of the cutter and started downstream with his prize. They had gone about half a mile when the smugglers opened fire from behind an embankment above the river. Farrington ordered Pvt. Elias Drake to take the helm of the cutter, but as Drake reached for the helm a bullet tore through his head and killed him instantly.

As gunfire raked the cutter, Farrington ordered his men to lie flat in the boat. He grabbed an oar and maneuvered the craft ashore below the smugglers’ hiding place. Then he and his men leaped ashore and started to move against the smugglers.

They had advanced only a few yards when the attackers fired the blunderbuss artillery piece. Two men fell dead under the hail of lead, and Farrington was badly wounded. Sergeant Johnson rallied the men and succeeded in capturing all but two of the Black Snake’s crew. They were lodged in jail at Burlington, and later the two smugglers who escaped were rounded up.

Cyrus B. Dean, one of the smugglers, was convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged. A crowd of ten thousand gathered in Burlington to witness the execution, and some historians say that Dean was the first man to die of capital punishment in Vermont. Others of the gang, including Mudgett, were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to prison.

The smuggling did not stop when the United States went to war with Great Britain in 1812. The British army in Canada was willing to pay high prices for cattle and other provisions at that time. The Customs officers were almost helpless in trying to halt the traffic across the border. Huge herds of fat oxen and cattle were driven through the woods to the border and turned over to Canadians. The militia were called out to halt the traffic in cattle, but even the militia were unable to man all the crossing points along the border.

Customs officers seized cattle, horses, provisions of all kinds, merchandise, furs, and other articles from the smugglers. It also was found that some Vermonters were making contracts with the British to supply them with masts and spars for their naval vessels. And it was whispered that a prominent Vermont businessman was the backer of a smuggling gang which was selling materials to the British navy. There were gun battles between Customs men and the smugglers.

The War of 1812 had been underway for two years when Sir George Prevost, Governor General of Canada, wrote to Lord Bathurst in the British Foreign Office reporting that “two-thirds of the army in Canada are at this moment eating beef provided by American contractors, drawn principally from the States of Vermont and New York.”

Secretary of War Armstrong was informed by one of his generals that the only way that intercourse with the enemy could be halted was to line the border with troops--which obviously was impossible. The General reported: “Like herds of buffaloes they pressed through the forest, making paths for themselves. Were it not for these supplies, the British forces in Canada would soon be suffering from famine, or their government be subjected to enormous expense for their maintenance.”

The young Customs Service now had fought gun battles on land and “at sea” in an effort to enforce the law. This was a fight that still would be going on a century and a half later.

THE PIRATES OF NEW ORLEANS

On November 24, 1813, most citizens of New Orleans were chuckling over a new proclamation, bearing the signature of Gov. W. C. C. Claiborne, which had been posted on bulletin boards throughout the city. They were not so much amused because the Governor had accused a pirate of attacking a U.S. Customs officer (although this was amusing enough to many), but because Claiborne actually expected someone to take seriously his offer of a $500 reward for the capture of the pirate Jean Laffite.

Invade the pirate hideout in the swamps and capture Jean Laffite--or even his brother Pierre--for a mere $500? And Claiborne was naive if he thought that most of Louisiana’s politicians and merchants had any desire to halt the smuggling of pirated merchandise while a war was being fought against Great Britain. Any kind of merchandise was hard to obtain.

Two days after the posting of the proclamation, a wave of raucous laughter sounded in the coffee houses, taverns and drawing rooms of New Orleans. The laughter exploded over a proclamation posted throughout the city which was a parody of the Claiborne document. It offered a reward of $1,500 for the arrest of Governor Claiborne and his delivery to the pirate hideout at Grande Terre in the bayou country south of New Orleans. The proclamation was signed by Jean Laffite.

Laffite’s arrogance was no laughing matter to government officials in Louisiana and Washington. Not only were the pirates openly defying Federal and state authority, but a legitimate merchant had little chance to compete against those who purchased their goods at the pirates’ auctions. The auctions were held regularly on islands in the swamps near New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise--captured on the high seas--could be bought cheaply and with no payment of Customs duties.