Crime tales from the long-lost black nightclubs of St. Antoine Street

  

Generic dude photoshopped in front of now-demolished buildings
that once housed the old time black clubs of St. Antoine Street

 The now-demolished-and-replaced structures on the south side of St. Antoine just east of Mountain once housed two prominent social clubs exclusively for the black population, which tended to live in the nearby area. 

 The Utopia Club opened up in 1897 and moved nearby to a spot across from what's now a giant hockey arena in 1911. The Utopia - and the other nearby black clubs - were supposedly open for members only but pretty much any black person was welcome. It's unclear whether people slept there but articles frequently refer to rooms in these places. Gambling and drinking were the main draws. Police generally ignored these clubs.. 

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1912:  Henry Bell was still aged in his twenties when he married widow Mrs. Durant, whose deceased husband Ed Durant had managed the Utopia Club. Bell also toiled at the Standard Club as secretary. He moved in with widow Durant in a nice place nearby on Mountain Street and the duo enjoyed some relative prosperity. 

 Bell's fortunes turned around suddenly on 12 January 1912 as police arrested him and charged him with the murder of Beatrice Dehart, a white woman in Chicago. Her throat had been slashed in a home on State Street in Chicago in November 1909. 

 Bell bore a mark on his head and a growth on his right hand that fit the description of the killer.

 Chicago police believed that Bell's real name was Charles Newton Estess, aged 28.  Bell was transported to Chicago where a detective insisted that Bell was the killer Estess but other witnesses failed to positively identify Bell. 

 The process dragged on until late 1914.The case went to court and suddenly police deputy Scheuttler changed his tune. "I am positive that this man is innocent," he told a courtroom. One newspaper article suggested that Bell had bribed the detective $10,000 to let him off the hook.

 Bell returned to Montreal but his life was no longer the same. His wife divorced him and he lost everything. 

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 1915 - The Standard Club opened in 1914 also on the south side of St. Antoine. On 30 November 1915, police arrested Ben Sportsman "one of best known colored men of Montreal" and charged him with attempting to kill his longtime friend, James Harris manager of Standard Club. Sportsman had fired three shots at Harris hitting him once in the left heel in one of the rooms of Standard Club. Harris did not suffer a serious wound. 

 Sportsman explained that he shot at Harris because he believed that Harris was pulling a gun on him. They had been joking around, teasing each other and Harris apparently hit a nerve with his pal who came out gun blazing. Sportsman had managed other nightclubs and had recently sold his interest in a club on Phillips Square and also owned an interest in a nightclub on Mansfield. Harris was fine and Sportsman was let go.

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1916 - George Blackwell shot Utopia Club secretary-treasurer Levi Spencer on 30 March 1916 at about 7 pm. Blackwell was put in jail for 21 months but was freed by a judge who declared him guilty and sentenced him to time served. Blackwell explained that the gun had gone off accidentally as the two were examining it in Spencer's office  Spencer survived. 

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1930 -   On 27 June 1930 Edouard Moreau, 41, a waiter at the Utopia Club, shot Lester Tolliver, 28, an orchestra drummer, dead at the Utopia Club. He went to a nearby police station to confess. He explained that Tolliver had been talking loudly and drunkenly in front of his friend Alice Young. Tolliver took Moreau's drink and drank it. Others warned Tolliver to behave. Tolliver disliked being told to shut up so he pulled out a large knife and held it in a threatening manner. Moreau pulled out a gun and shot Tolliver dead. He tossed the gun away and it was never found. Moreau lived at 864 Richmond, and Toliver at 264 Ontario West. Moreau was eventually freed and not charged in the shooting. He later asked for a gun license, noting that friends of Tolliver had been threatening him. 

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 1931 - Rubin Denis Saunders, 49, shot James Brown Harris, 51, dead at the Standard Club on 14 November 1931. This is presumably the same Harris shot in 1915. Harris didn't survive this time, however.  

 Saunders was in the club on a Saturday afternoon at about 2:30 p.m., preparing the place for the evening. Harris, his partner in the club for the last two years, arrived and walked to the till behind the bar looking for a cheque he was expecting. 

 Harris expressed irritation at not finding the item he sought and told Harris, "well if you are so brainless as that you might as well get out of here. Saunders replied "Jimmy I have had enough of this," and then shot Harris twice through the heart with .32 calibre bullets. According to the doorman John Kelly: "Harris did not say a word. He crumpled up a bit but managed to walk out into the kitchen. Once there he took off his coat and vest, slithered to his knees and fell face forward on the floor." 

 Saunders took his coat off the peg and walked to a police station to turn himself in. 

 On 16 February 1932 authorities charged Saunders with murder. Saunders told the court that he feared Harris as he was a bad man who had killed a police officer 20 years earlier in the United States and who was aggresive to the point of once tossing a chair at him and that he had failed to give him  any money from the club for the 23 months they were co-owners of the club.  A judge sentenced Saunders to seven years for manslaughter.