While the Mound House has had a variety of interesting resdients, one of the most colorful was a British promoter named Jack DeLysle. DeLysle came to Southwest Florida amid charges of smuggling rum from Cuba to the United States during the alcohol free era of Prohibition. The following narrative describes the event and is pulled from newspaper accounts from the time.
 |
| Jack DeLysle in front of a Ft. Myers home |
THE INCIDENT
The Uralia, a schooner containing
a ship load of whiskey was wrecked on a sand bar below Naples during heavy
northeast gale Saturday, the fifteenth of January 1921. Three days before the
ship had set anchor off the coast of Naples and when the storm hit the crew
attempted to secure the boat in Gordon’s Pass and became grounded on a sand
bar. A large number of cases of alcohol washed ashore and were then salvaged
and were either hidden in mangroves or stolen and changed hands. The vessel originated in Mobile several weeks
before the incident under the name Frank M. and sailed under an American flag.
It then sailed to Tampa, Naples, and Key West before it anchored in Havana. It
was here that the boat was loaded with alcohol and changed its name to Uralia
and its flag to British. Its destination was meant to be Pensacola but the
Uralia was forced to drop anchor off of Fort Myers due to the storm.
THE CREW
The crew originally consisted of
Jack and John Delyse, Captain Brindley L. Coats, a Spaniard, and a black deck
hand named Cleveland Bodden or Bedden. Jack DeLysle, had previously served in World
War I as a captain in the air service and “acted as one of the official air
photographers for the British government.” DeLysle met his wife and two year
old son in Havana and sailed back to Fort Myers with his family on a separate
ship. At the time of the shipwreck DeLysle and his family were living in a
suite at a Naples hotel and “apparently caring little for expense. Among the
incidentals added to the furnishings of the suite was a handsome piano.” When
police arrived at the shipwreck, the crew consisted of John Delysle, the
Spaniard, and Cleveland, John claimed that he was merely the engineer and that
the captain had fled the ship.
THE INVESTIGATION
Major William, federal
prohibition enforcement officer, arrived in Fort Myers from Tampa and worked
alongside Sheriff Frank B. Tippins and Officer John Barnhill to investigate the
illegal alcohol aboard the ship. They estimated that originally the Uralia held
close to 995 cases. The cases were labeled “Soap” and marked in blue chalk with
the number “12.” While most of these cases disappeared, the officials were able
to find a couple of cases labeled “Country Club” whiskey. The alcohol in these
branded boxes appeared to have originated from New Hope Kentucky before Prohibition
was enacted, at that time it was shipped out of the country to Cuba. The
officers stated that the liquor is a very poor grade, at least the bottles discovered
by them. The investigators discovereed Cleveland’s diary and found that he was
employed by Captain Coats three months prior to the incident; he and the
captain met the DeLysles in Mobile Alabama and chartered them for this trip.
They then sailed to St. Andrews Bay and then down to Tampa where the DeLysles
came aboard. It appears that on the cruise down south between Key West and Cuba
Capt. Coats and DeLysle had a quarrel “over whether they should bring back with
them a load of Chinamen or a load of booze, the former claiming it was more
profitable to smuggle in Chinamen to the United State.” Once they arrived in
Havana Coats registered the boat as the Uralia under Cleveland’s name since he
was a British subject.
THE TRIAL
The DeLysle brothers were taken
to Tampa for a trial before Walter O. Sheppard, the United States Commissioner.
The two brothers were represented by their attorney R.A. Henderson. Cleveland
was called as a witness during the trial as was Will Tomlinson and J.O.
Whidden.
Both brothers were declared
innocent after it was found that a number of the witnesses had been caught with
liquor and one of them at least had been convicted several times previously for
illegal sale of liquor. The testimony of one man, that he purchased illegal
liquor from Jack DeLysle, was thrown out after several witnesses proved that
Jack DeLysle was not in Fort Myers on the day the witness said, nor for two
days prior to that time. The jury
acquitted the DeLysle brothers after only ten minutes of deliberation and with
not a single dissenting vote.
