“Oh Wells, you are a hard man! The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have their nests, but you hath not a friend anywhere. Wells, your name is a terror to me.” – Mary McLean

In tonight’s tale I will tell you about the exploits of Michael and Mary McLean – the husband and wife bootlegging team who ran the rum trade in Little Bay during the 1880s. We will consider their operation as it relates to changes in the Christmas season in Little Bay over the course of the late 19th century. We’ll start at the beginning, before the arrival of the McLeans, when the town was still in the hands of a German Baron.

The Germans ran a tight ship. They oversaw Little Bay from its start in 1878 until 1881. During their stay, there doesn’t seem to have been much if any involvement from the Newfoundland government. Baron Ellershausen was left to manage his own affairs and by all accounts he managed them just fine. He was well supported. The first miners came with him from Nova Scotia. They were German born Presbyterians and owed much to the Baron. The Baron also appointed Little Bay’s first leadership including the town’s doctor and its first clergy. There was no magistrate and no police force in Little Bay during this time but there doesn’t seem to have been much need for them either. It’s claimed that there was almost no crime or drinking in the German-ran community. The streets were clean and the people well behaved. The emphasis was on higher cultural pursuits and it’s a fair guess that Christmas seasons under German rule were cordial affairs with concerts at the Public Hall. The Baron ran his little fiefdom well. Liquor was absent and society was ordered. The mine’s management and the town’s management were one and the same making Little Bay quite literally a company town. 

Everything changed after the Germans sold the mine to a British company. The British had much less concern for the management of the place beyond its mine. Under the British Little Bay followed the License Act of 1875 which allowed for the sale of liquor from licensed establishments. These would be posted publicly each Christmas for the upcoming year. The years between 1881 and 1883 saw a rise in drunkenness and violence. Likely in anticipation of this outcome Little Bay was assigned a Magistrate. Magistrate Blandford was present by 1881. He was just one man, however, and had little power over the increasingly dangerous goings-on. That changed with the arrival of Sergeant Thomas Wells in August of 1883. By this time the town had two licensed liquor selling establishments – The Little Bay Hotel ran by Big Dan Courtney and The Skittle Alley ran by John Lamb. They would come into conflict with the fledgling cause of law and order later in this story but before getting to them there was the issue of our bootleggers. The licensed liquor sales were augmented by an illegal operation ran by a notorious husband and wife criminal duo – Michael and Mary McLean.

The Magistrate and the Sergeant were praised in the papers for cracking down on law breakers. Little Bay was witnessing enforcement after years of lawlessness. Blandford and Wells had well organized supporters. The Presbyterian Reverend Fitzpatrick was responsible for organizing a Temperance Movement that would take Little Bay by storm. Fitzpatrick sought to get some of the old Little Bay back so in Christmas of 1883 he oversaw the formation of a Band of Hope. Little Bay’s Temperance Movement had begun. Sergeant Wells was a vocal supporter right away taking the side of total abstinence and it wasn’t long before the movement was unified under his zero tolerance vision. The newspaper’s praised him for arresting drunks and cleaning up the streets but the praise was guarded. The Temperance crowd expected more done from him and they directed the Sergeant’s attention to the licensed sellers. He’d have to get to them but his sights were set first on the illegal rum-runners.

I first find reference to the McLeans in Little Bay in 1882 when Michael and his brother John appear on the Voter’s List. Michael and his wife Mary were known for their illicit activities in Little Bay. They were the town’s infamous bootleggers. The husband and wife criminal team ran a sheeban house. A sheeban house was an illegal liquor selling operation, you can think of it as an underground bar but their happening party spot was only the tip of the iceberg for their activities. The police became suspicious of them and they were quickly targeted by Temperance. The McLean home burned down in 1883. I’m suspicious of arson. There were a number of fires related to Temperance around this time. It appears that Temperance in Little Bay may have had access to both legal and illegal means. The first charges were placed against the McLeans in March of 1884 but it wasn’t until May that year that the scale of their endeavour started to be understood. This was in thanks to Johnathan Benson.

Benson ran the Provisional Store. He was a reputable businessman who owned his own schooners and lived away from the main body of the community on Otter Island. Information obtained during an arrest lead Little Bay’s police to Benson’s stores. He’d been hiding rum for the McLeans in his salt stores. Once caught he spilled the beans on his part in the McLean operation. Johnathan Benson had picked up rum for the McLeans during a trip to St. John’s in the fall of 1883 which he stashed over the winter. It’s my guess that the illegal rum trade was aided further by licensed operations, perhaps resulting in reduced costs. There are some hints that the McLeans had connections to Big Dan Courtney’s Little Bay Hotel and John Lamb’s Skittle Alley. Miss McLean took a trip to St. John’s with Miss Courtney and John Lamb in 1886. The McLean’s son ran to Lamb’s Skittle Alley after the volume of people at the McLean premises had caught the attention of the police during their nightly rounds on April 12th 1884. The Little Bay Hotel and the Skittle Alley were licensed to sell liquor but had fallen under increased police scrutiny and pressure from the town’s brazen Temperance Movement.

The Christmas of 1885 was a rowdy one. The McLeans hosted a party at their sheeban house. Meanwhile, at the Little Bay Hotel, Big Dan had a jug smashed over his head. The celebrations in Little Bay got so out of hand that Christmas season that the police decided to forgo arresting anyone for fear of causing a riot. This didn’t sit well and likely contributed to the crack down that was witnessed over the following year. Many were arrested but legal operations were falling under serious police attention as well. The licensed establishments endured a harassment campaign of small red-tape infractions and saw their customers arrested outside their premises. The cops couldn’t shut them down directly yet but they could make their lives difficult. The Sergeant showed less restraint when it came to the wily McLeans.

By this point the McLeans had slipped the Sergeant’s noose a number of times. Perhaps they were aided by an informant. Both of Sergeant Wells’ Constables were potentially connected to the McLean operation. They were both drinkers. Constable Meany would eventually be dismissed for his behaviour and Constable Sutton was at one point engaged to the McLean’s daughter Annie. Nevertheless the pair aided the Sergeant in his acclaimed raid against the McLean operation on the night of July 11th 1886. The night that earned Little Bay’s police force the moniker – ‘Invincibles’ when they successfully passed themselves off as out-of-town visitors looking for a friendly drink. They accomplished this by donning elaborate disguises which included fake noses and hair dye. This got them access to the McLean sheeban house. The sting that followed put an end to the McLean’s bootlegging enterprise once and for all.

By the time Christmas came around again many of the townsfolk had had enough of drinking altogether and when the annual licenses were posted a sizeable number of distinguished gentleman gathered outside Magistrate Blandford’s place to protest any being granted. The next Temperance meeting saw an unlikely addition to their ranks. John Lamb of the Skittle Alley had switched sides in the town’s cultural debate and showed up to publicly support an end to liquor licensing in Little Bay. How they’d managed to get him to do this is anyone’s guess but it’s worth noting that Big Dan didn’t follow such suit and was found dead a few months later at the age of only 33.

Christmas of 1886 saw the police seize a barrel of rum intended for the Little Bay Hotel. This was before the licenses were officially cancelled. The rum was stored in a shed on the company wharf where someone managed to drill into the barrel from under the wharf and drain it of its contents from below. That was in February of 1887, the same month that licenses officially ended. Before that month was through the Skittle Alley would be burned to the ground – the last in a series of Temperance related arsons. With the destruction of the Skittle Alley the Temperance crowd could claim their final victory over old king alcohol. By July of 1889 it was reported that not a single drunk had been spotted in Little Bay for over a year.

The Christmas of 1889 was praised for its silence – a tranquilly broken only by the arrest of the few last celebrating mummers. Little Bay’s police found themselves with little else to do that holiday season. Mary McLean had one final drunken disorderly charge later that year but that seemed to be the end of it. With a combination of law enforcement, social movement, public debate, legal and illegal harassment, perhaps a bit of arson, and maybe a murder Temperance had won the day. There wasn’t much out of our dynamic duo after that. Michael and Mary McLean remained in town until 1893 when they moved away to Boston. And so ended their escapades. After that it was all quiet indeed.

Thank you for reading this Christmas themed rum-running tale! I hope you enjoyed it. Have a merry Christmas!

Known McLean customers:

• Allan McArthur – shoemaker
• Thomas Osbourn – miner
• Jeremiah Squires – miner
• James Fenley – carpenter
• Selby Dawe – ex-accountant / manager of the Lamb’s billiards room
• Walter Rollings – driver and tireman
• Charles Phillips – jack of all trades
• John Richards – fisherman
• John Eagen
• Phillip Breen
• Mrs. Power
• Mrs. E. Cooney
• Mr. Shannahan

Sources:

• 1871: Birth of Anne McLean to Michael and Mary at Harbour Grace (Vit stats)
• 1882: Michael and John McLean living at Little Bay Bight (Voter’s List)
• 1883: Birth of Christina McLean to Michael and Mary (Family Search Family Tree)
• 1883: A fire destroyed the home of M. McLean at Little Bay. All contents and 100 pounds were lost (ET, April 24, 1883)
• 1884: Police raid Micheal McLean’s house on March 10th after noticing people coming and going from the property and suspecting them of running a sheeban house (Wells)
• 1884: Michael McLean summoned for breach of the license act (Wells)
• 1884: Michael McLean’s son John observed running suspiciously to the Skittle Alley on April 12th (Wells)
• 1884: Benson confesses to hiding rum for the McLeans in his salt stores on April 17th (Wells)
• 1884: Michael McLean charged with selling liquor without a licence (Supreme Court docs)
• 1885: John McLean planter for insolvency (Supreme Court docs)
• 1885: John McLean insolvency case held in the Supreme Court (ET, Nov 11, 1885)
• 1886: The steamer Plover left St. John’s for Little Bay carrying Miss McLean, Miss Courtney, Mr. Soren, and Mr. Lamb (DC, Oct 8, 1886)
• 1887: January 22nd raid on the McLeans (Wells)
• 1887: Constable Wells charged with assault against Mary McLean during the raid. The case was dismissed by the court (Wells)
• 1887: Mary and Michael McLean busted by the Invincibles (TS, April 2, 1887)
• 1888: Constable Sutton requested to marry Annie McLean (Wells)
• 1888: Marriage of Mary McLean to John Joseph Swain (Swain Family Tree)
• 1889: Michael McLean living at Little Bay Bight (Voter’s List)
• 1889: Michael McLean donated to the Parnell Defence Fund (SJC, March 9, 1889)
• 1889: August 12th Mary McLean summoned for drunk and disorderly (Wells)
• 1889: John McLean jr. donated to the Harbour Grace Cathedral Fund (SJC, Oct 11, 1889)
• 1890: Death of John Bernard McLean – son of Michael (RC graves)
• 1893: Elizabeth McLean married Peter Gregory (Civ marriages)
• 1893: Michael and Mary McLean migrate to Boston (Naturalization records)
• 1894: Michael and John McLean listed as fishermen at Little Bay Harbour (1894 census)
• 1898: Death of Mary McLean (1865-1898) (Swain Family Tree)
• 1898: John McLean listed as labourer in Little Bay Harbour (McAlpines)
• 1898: Death of Michael McLean in Massachusetts (Death records)