Tag Archives: 100th anniversary
It’s the 100th anniversary! Let’s raise a glass to Prohibition
On a foggy evening on April 23, 1927, the fishing schooner Etta M. Burns was sailing back to New Bedford when the helmsman fell asleep and the boat washed up on the rocks off Squibnocket Beach in Chilmark. As the surf battered the ship, bottles of liquor were released from the ruptured hull and washed up on shore.,, the bottles that washed ashore were marked Old Mac Scotch Whisky, but they had come not from Scotland but from a 
rusty steamer anchored 30 miles off Montauk. They were all totally rotgut. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the 18th Amendment, a constitutional ban on the production and sale of alcoholic beverages that can be seen as the very definition of unintended consequences. Rather than eliminating liquor, this act did more to instill a culture of drinking in a thirsty nation than 100,000 happy hours. >click to read< 10:43
The fishing schooner Mina Swim and crew of 21 never seen again after leaving Burin a century ago
It was a tragedy that left families devastated, and changed Burin forever, but the sinking of the Mina Swim might have been forgotten if not for the work of local residents determined to keep the memory alive. On Tuesday, Burin will mark the 100th anniversary of that tragedy. The fishing schooner Mina Swim left Burin on the afternoon of Feb. 7, 1917, with a crew of 21 on board. It was bound for fishing grounds on the southwest coast of Newfoundland. It was never seen or heard from again. “Back in 1917, the community wouldn’t have been that big, then you have twenty-one of your men taken away in one tragedy,” said Howard Lundrigan, who lost a cousin in the sinking. Eighteen widows and 57 children were left without husbands and fathers. Read the story here 12:27
