Two for Tuesday: The Rum Train & Scibelli's Roadhouse
The Rum Train
Massachusetts State Police at the Agawam Barracks received word that a Packard Twin Six was leading a couple of Hudsons and a Chrysler toward Southwick (from Connecticut) on March 28, 1926.
Connecticut State Police were already pursuing the train of vehicles, the second one carrying illegal spirits. Still, they could not stop them before they crossed the state line into Massachusetts at Southwick.
Massachusetts State Police joined the chase, taking the lead, Connecticut following. But their machines were no match against the mighty powerful Packard.
One of the Hudsons (the one loaded with 150 gallons of illegal, high-grade, high-priced wholesale liquor) broke down. With the police hot on their trail, there was no time to unload the goods, so the Chrysler towed it.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts State Police officers were waiting in front of infamous Southwick physician Dr. Harry Carr's house on College Highway, ready to pounce on the bootleggers.
Catching sight of the police ambush, the luxurious Twin Six, in a commanding lead, gassed it, blowing through the roadblock at about 6:00 a.m., its occupants hugging the floorboards as police fired buckshot from riot guns. The fleeing Packard continued to speed down College Highway, quickly fading out of sight in its rapid approach to the village center.
Police opened fire on the other cars as they attempted to pass Dr. Carr's house, wounding the driver of the Hudson, his left arm riddled with bullets. The bootleggers ran from their cars under a hail of police gunfire.
Authorities managed to arrest five, but others escaped on foot. Troopers carried the wounded driver into Dr. Carr's house for treatment and then transferred him to Wesson Hospital in Springfield, escorted by armed guards.
Police seized the Hudsons and the Chrysler. They interrogated the bootleggers at length, trying to get them to name names.
It is unclear if the police ever captured the bootleggers in the Packard, but it is believed they remained at large.
Scibelli's Roadhouse
Authorities in Western Massachusetts at the time said it was the most elaborate setup they had ever seen. Hidden off of Putney Road, a narrow, winding road off College Highway, about 2 miles south of Southwick Center, was a two-story barn accessible only by a private road through a farm. (Putney Road is today's Fred Jackson Road.)
Roughly 300 yards from the barn were two brooks with dams, and water was being rerouted to the barn using pipes.
The barn sat about 500 yards behind a farmhouse. Bootleggers had painted the barn green, so it blended in with pine trees, and they scattered brush around to help conceal it, making it so well camouflaged that it was hard to see at 100 yards. Because of this, authorities thought it best to raid it during daylight.
Police, working on a tip, made their way to the farmhouse on Monday, October 17, 1927. Once inside, they arrested Anthony Cressotti.
Next, they headed to the barn, where a still was operating. As the raiding party approached, four men, tipped off about the raid, dashed into the woods. (Authorities would later discover a secret phone line running underground from the farmhouse, then attached to a barbwire fence to the distillery. Presumably, Cressotti used it seconds before the raiding party arrived.)
 |
| 50 barrel drums of neutral oil and a truck loaded with 175 five-gallon cans of illegal liquor. |
In high bushes, about 100 yards from the barn, was a hut where the men apparently lived. Inside, police found chicken feathers, two cots, coal, and other provisions. A fire was going full blast, and dinner (the chickens) was being prepared.
Police and federal Prohibition agents dismantled the plant the next day, which consisted of seven 500-gallon reserve tanks, a boiler, a 1000-gallon still on the ground level, and a giant pipe rising 35 feet to a cooling apparatus on the second floor. They also tore out the phone and water lines and broke up the dams.
Authorities seized 200 gallons of redistilled alcohol, the fumes so strong they had to wait outside for about an hour before continuing the teardown. They also confiscated fifty barrels of neutral oil and 175 five-gallon cans of alcohol.
 |
| Equipment from the Putney Road Raid. |
During their interrogation, Cressotti or Harbut may have implicated Andrew Scibelli of Southwick. (Appearing in Westfield District Court, a judge fined Harbut and Cressotti $400 each.)
Massachusetts State Police raided Scibelli's place in Feeding Hills, known as "50 Acres," around 11:00 p.m. on October 18. There, they seized more than 575 bottles of beer, 30 plus quarts of wine, a gallon of gin, moonshine, and a host of implements used in manufacturing liquor. (The house was outfitted as a roadhouse with 18 private dining rooms.)
Appearing in Westfield District Court on October 19, the judge fined Scibelli $150. ($100 for keeping and exposing liquor; $50 for illegal liquor sales.)
Edited Out/Author's Additional Research Notes
Anthony Cressotti was born in Springfield on May 17, 1898; he died there on April 18, 1981.
Cressotti apparently leased the land where the distillery was.