Our Story - The Artemis Legacy
In August 1931, the notorious rumrunner Artemis eluded the Coast Guard in a dramatic high-speed chase off Orient Point, exchanging gunfire, ramming a patrol boat, and ultimately escaping with its prized cargo, cementing its legacy as one of the most elusive vessels of the Prohibition era. This is the story of Artemis.
An especially notorious incident began in the waters off Orient Point around midnight in August 1931, when a Coast Guard patrol boat spotted the Artemis, a boat built especially for rumrunning: 52 feet long, with three high-powered engines that could achieve speeds of about 45 knots. Aboard it were two Greenport residents, Carl Reiter and John Johnson.
Refusing the Coast Guard cutter’s request to stop, the Artemis took off, with the Coast Guard in pursuit. The patrol boat fired over 500 rounds of machine gun on the Artemis, seriously wounding Reiter and Johnson. The Artemis turned and rammed the cutter (a former rum runner named the Black Duck), disabling it long enough to land in Orient and get the men transported to a hospital in Greenport while the vessel’s prized cargo was quickly unloaded by swarms of willing local residents.
Authorities eventually learned that the crippled Artemis had been towed to Port Jefferson by the swordfisher Evangeline, but workers at the Port Jefferson Shipyard claimed not to know who owned the disabled craft, which bore no registration numbers, or who gave the orders to make her seaworthy. Fearing that the mysterious smugglers might attempt to spirit the stranded Artemis out of Port Jefferson, five deputy sheriffs guarded the fugitive vessel until Sunday, Aug. 23, when a Coast Guard cutter took over the watch.
The Artemis was seized by the United States Marshal, who claimed that her owners had an outstanding debt at the Gaffga Engine Works in Greenport. After the dispute was settled, the Artemis posted bond and quietly left Port Jefferson, much to the dismay of the Coast Guard. Over the ensuing years, the Artemis changed hands and home ports several times, but never lost her reputation as a lawbreaker. In May 1935, the Coast Guard captured the Artemis off Chesapeake Bay and brought her to New York Harbor on suspicion of rumrunning, but without any evidence of illegality, the speedboat and her crew were released by the government. With the end of prohibition, the Artemis began a new, but less exciting career, running as a ferry between Bay Shore and Fire Island.