For my Readers who know John Dwight

I quote from a book I am reading on Prohibition, Last Call by Daniel Okrent

"But by mid-decade the value of goods afloat on American coastal waters had bought a vicious element into the rum-running business:  nautical auxiliaries of violent urban gangs.  For crewman on the mother ships, the days when your customers would bring you groceries or carry your mail ashore had given way to fear-filled nights.  The sanguinary chill that settled over Rum Row had been signaled by the scuttling, in 1923, of the John Dwight,  a 107-foot steam trawler hauling a Canadian cargo of Frontenac Export Ale through Rum Lane, near Martha's Vineyard.  The bodies of eight Dwight crewmen  were later found in the surf off the Vineyard hamlet of Menemsha.  Three had had the skin stripped from their faces.  Others had had their eyes burned out, their finger-prints scarred beyond recognition by acid.  The sone of Dwight's captain was found adrift in a dinghy, his skull fractured, his body wedged beneath a seat.  One of the dead men was known to have been carrying $100,000 in cash for an impending purchase."


Readers wanting choice quips about this can contact me.