Lewiston’s 1910 Prohibition War Sturgis deputies raid liquor sellers

Sturgis deputies raid liquor sellers by Brian Swartz Y ears before Eliot Ness and the Untouchables took down Chicago gangster Al Capone, Maine liquor agents tackled the bars, booze halls, and other places where liquor was illegally sold in the Pine Tree State. Assigned to the Sturgis Commission (so named for a York County state senator whose bill created the outfit in 1905), the so-called “Sturgis deputies” enforced Maine’s prohibition law statewide.

Maine had enacted Prohibition in 1851, repealed the law in 1855, restored the law in 1855, and then written it into the state constitution in 1884. Repeal efforts steadily failed, but with many Mainers thumbing their noses at Prohibition, the law faced nullification by December 1905.

“A state law which cannot be repealed may be nullified in rebellious localities,” wrote Charles E. Owen that month. Secretary of the Christian Civic League of Maine, he explained how “in certain portions of Maine, notably in the cities … the demand for liquor was sufficient to encourage lawless men to engage in the liquor trade.”

Forging friendships with “local officials,” liquor dealers enjoyed local protection that later “extended beyond municipal administration” to encompass “county officials, sheriffs, and county attorneys” in 14 of 16 Maine counties, Owen wrote. The Sturgis Commission set about replacing corrupt officials with honest men. “When in the judgment of the commission honest and efficient enforcement” of prohibition “is not being attempted,” deputy commissioners could be appointed to enforce Prohibition in certain counties and cities, Owen noted.

Androscoggin was first up at the county level, and Lewiston at the city level. “Lewiston … was the seat of difficulty,” Owen groused. “A large foreign element subject to bribery in elections” controlled local politics, and a recent local election resulted in the appointment of anti-prohibition county officials.

(cont. on page 22)

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“When the commission became convinced that conditions in Androscoggin County demanded their attention, six of the best deputies to be found were qualified and sent to Lewiston,” Owen wrote. By late 1905 the Sturgis deputies had shipped “151 liquor cases” to the Androscoggin County Supreme Judicial Court for adjudication.

But the prohibition war had just begun in Lewiston. For every liquor dealer put out of business or run out of the county, another dealer appeared. On November 3, 1909, “the Sturgis deputies … made two successful raids in Lewiston, Deputies Howard and Hayward making the seizures,” reported a local paper.

About 11 a.m. that day, the deputies “visited the place said to be run by Leander Lebrun, on Lincoln Street next to the canal.” The deputies “found a hide containing 15 pints of whiskey.”

In midafternoon, Howard and Hay- (cont. from page 21) ward raided the home of “Mademoiselle Marie Fontaine, a resident of Hines Alley, and found a 16-gallon keg of beer and a considerable quantity of hard stuff,” the paper noted.

Four months later, around 2-3 p.m. on Saturday, February 26, 1910, Hayward and Sturgis deputies Beaulieu and Goss raided a building on lower Lisbon Street that was owned by Thomas Carpenter. Entering the building, the deputies “went directly upstairs” and burst into a room occupied by Thomas and Flossie Carpenter and two other women and three other men.

In the kitchen the deputies found a box containing “59-pint bottles of P.B. Ale,” Hayward told the municipal court judge. Beaulieu and Goss did not testify.

Identified as “a Lewiston hack driver,” Thomas Carpenter was arraigned in Lewiston Municipal Court on Monday, February 28.

Lewiston doctor W.S. Garcelon then took the stand for the defense. “He had prescribed whiskey or ale for Carpenter” in summer 1909, soon after the defendant “was struck by a car at the corner of Pine and Lisbon streets” in Lewiston. Garcelon had last treated Carpenter on February 10, 1910.

Thomas Carpenter next took the stand. A Lewiston resident the past quarter century, he owned the boarding house raided by the Sturgis deputies. He had received “a box from M.H. Cole of Boston” on Saturday, February 26.

“How much do you drink?” defense attorney Louis Brann asked.

“Well, I am no boozer, but I have to have about three bottles a day,” Carpenter replied.

“Did you drink any of the liquor that came Saturday?” Brann inquired.

“No, sir, I didn’t have time,” Carpenter said. He then claimed having

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“met Sturgis Deputy Howard in front of the Blue store” in late February “and asked him if it would be all right to get some beer for myself.”

Howard “didn’t know why it wouldn’t be all right,” then commented “that there was no good beer in this town anyway,” Carpenter said.

Flossie Carpenter testified that after warning her husband about the approaching deputies, she handed the cover of the P.B. Ale box to Deputy Bearlieu and said, “Here’s a case for you.”

Boston and Lewiston Express driver John H. Folsom testified that he had delivered boxes “of the same size” to the Carpenters’ abode on January 22 and February 1, 4, 22, and 25. “He did not know what was in the boxes he delivered,” a newspaper reporter observed. Brann conferred with the Carpenters in the courtroom corridor. Then Thomas Carpenter took the stand again and claimed that his visiting aunt and uncle “had used some of the liquor to celebrate with.”

“I suppose your uncle drank quite a lot?” Brann asked.

“Oh, he does like it,” Carpenter responded.

Three Lewiston men attested to either Carpenter’s character or not knowing of any liquor being sold in his place. “At the conclusion of this testimony, Carpenter was discharged” and the charges dismissed, the reporter indicated.

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