William McCoy (bootlegger) - McCoy During Prohibition

McCoy During Prohibition

During Prohibition (1920–33), the McCoy brothers fell on hard times. Their excursion and freight business could not compete with the new highways and buses being built up and down the coast and across Florida. Needing money, the two brothers made a decision to go into rum-running. They sold the assets of their business, traveled to Gloucester, Massachusetts, and bought the schooner Henry L. Marshall.

McCoy then began to smuggle whisky into the U.S., traveling from Nassau and Bimini in the Bahamas to the east coast of the United States, spending most time dealing on "Rum row" off Long Island. After a few successful trips smuggling liquor off the coast of the United States, Bill McCoy had enough money to buy the schooner Arethusa. Placing the schooner under British registry in order to avoid being subjected to U.S. law, Bill renamed the vessel Tomoka (after the name of the River that runs through his hometown of Holly Hill).

McCoy made a number of successful trips aboard the Tomoka, and - along with the Henry L. Marshall and up to five other vessels – became a household name through his smuggling activities. Capt. McCoy mostly hauled Rye, Irish and Canadian whiskey as well as other fine liquors and wines. He is credited with inventing the "burlock" – a package holding six bottles jacketed in straw, three on the bottom, then two, then one, the whole sewed tightly in burlap. It was economical of space and easy to handle and stow. These were generally known in the Coast Guard as "sacks." McCoy's legend grew as his quality liquor and fair-dealing perpetuated the phrase: "it's the real McCoy."

McCoy also became an enemy of the U.S. Government and organized crime. When the Coast Guard discovered McCoy, he established the system of anchoring large ships off the coast in international waters and selling liquor to smaller ships that transferred it to the shore. McCoy also smuggled liquor and spirits from the French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon located south of Newfoundland.