Bloodshed out on Windsor frontier
Local author’s latest book captures how a preacher got away with 1920 homicide
The preacher didn’t like being disrespected, and he was angry, so he broke a window and snuck into the bar packing a pistol. Moments later, a beloved barkeep was dead with a bullet in his gut, and Ontario was captivated by the scintillating story of blood shed over booze in the wild Windsor frontier. That notorious story is the focus of a new book called Dying for a Drink: How a Prohibition Preacher Got Away with Murder, by Windsor author and lawyer Patrick Brode.
“It’s the high-water mark of the conflict between what Ontario was, a very Victorian society in the 1800s and going up to the this period, and what Ontario was going to become — a more cosmopolitan and leisure oriented society,” said Brode, who has written 11 books. “You can look at this one incident and see the conflict between the two views of what Ontario society should be. That’s one of the reasons it was talked about certainly across the province, if not the country.”
On one side of that conflict was Methodist minister J.O.L. Spracklin, also a hot-headed liquor inspector and prohibition crusader, known to history as the Fighting Parson. On the other was bar owner Beverly (Babe) Trumble. On Nov. 6, 1920, their fates collided in a fatal showdown with implications that rippled across Canada.
It was around 2 a.m., Spracklin, the provincial government’s go-to prohibition enforcer, found a man lying outside the Chapel House bar in Sandwich.
The man had been beaten up. One of Spracklin’s men tried to enter the bar. He was refused. So they went around the side of the building, smashed a window and crawled in.
“They had no search warrant, they had no probable cause to get a search warrant,” said Brode. “No indication at that point that anybody was selling illegal liquor anywhere in the Chapel House.” Spracklin’s gang, with guns drawn, confronted some people in the bar. Trumble, who lived upstairs with his family, heard the ruckus and came down. “He was yelling at these agents to show me your badges and how do you get off breaking into the place I live with my wife and children at two o’clock in the morning?” said Brode.
Spracklin emerged from a pantry where he had been searching — unsuccessfully — for liquor. His eyes and his fury were trained on Trumble. By most accounts, the confrontation lasted a few seconds.
“According to Trumble’s people, Spracklin backed up, pulled out a gun and shot Trumble once in the abdomen,” said Brode. “Killed him.”
Spracklin’s people said Trumble had a gun and threatened to shoot. “Although Spracklin was the only one who fired, and no gun was ever found on Trumble,” said Brode.
Despite that, Spracklin cried self-defence. There was a trial, but barely. He breezed his way to an acquittal and never spent a day behind bars.
In Windsor, where people today boast of rum-runners in their family trees, the slaying was a turning point.
“Just a few weeks after the killing, there was a large prohibition and temperance meeting held at the Windsor Armouries,” said Brode. “The temperance speaker who came there was attacked by a mob. In fact, the police could barely protect him. People in Windsor were kind of pro-drinking and they really resented all these restrictions that Toronto was imposing on this part of the province.” But the shocking slaying in what was then referred to as the “Essex Frontier” captivated the imaginations of big city dwellers in dry Toronto, most of whom thought Trumble got what he deserved. The Toronto newspapers all sent reporters to Windsor to cover the story.
“People in Toronto, most of whom were fairly strong in the prohibition camp, looked upon what was going on in the border cities as being terribly wrong and had to be put down,” said Brode. “There was violence. You could hear gunfire most nights. It was safely away from Toronto. It wasn’t in their neighbourhoods, but they liked to read about it taking place somewhere on the frontier. It was kind of like the Wild West.” Book publisher Biblioasis is hosting two launch parties for Dying for a Drink. The first is 7 p.m. Thursday at Windsor Public Library ’s central branch. The second event starts at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Sandwich library branch.