Partly in Vermont: A Borderline Case

(2 of 3)

Over the years the border has occasionally tightened up like a vise. During Prohibition, for instance, American officials tried vigorously, and sometimes violently, to stem the flow of bootleg liquor from Canada. Dr. Gilles Bouchard claims that when he examines some of the aging farmers in the region, he still finds bullet-wound scars. "I'll ask where they got them," he says. "They'll just shrug and tell me they used to run rum into the States."

Trouble with border officials can still seriously disrupt a man's life. Take the case of Terrence Walsh, who now works as an American customs inspector himself, and once was employed by the Butterfield Co., an industrial cutting tool factory which is the town's major employer.

The factory is built right across a narrow, frothy stretch of the Tomifobia River and the border runs through it. Two companies are housed in the building: an American corporation buying American raw materials and turning out products for American customers; a Canadian corporation turning Canadian materials into Canadian products. Both are called the Union-Butterfield Division, which belongs to Litton Industrial Products, Inc. in the U.S., and to Litton Business Systems of Canada, Ltd. on the other side. No machinery, materials or goods can cross the borderline in the center of the building—carefully marked by wall plaques and dabs of red paint—unless the appropriate customs service is notified and a duty is paid. Vending machines just a few feet over the line will not accept the currency of the other country.

Walsh was reassigned from a job on the American side to one on the Canadian side. "The company said they'd take care of the details," he remembers. But they didn't do it right away. After several days at work, Walsh was stopped at the Canadian customs house on his way to work. He told them about his transfer.

"They blew up," he remembers. "They claimed I hadn't registered and told me I was in big trouble." For a few anxious days, Walsh feared that he would lose his job, and perhaps even the right to cross freely into Canada.

The most dramatic border incident in Derby Line occurred on July 14, 1976. Rifle-toting plainclothesmen suddenly appeared at every door and window of the town library, an imposing turn-of-the-century granite and brick structure just outside the center of town, and the only public building standing in the U.S. and Canada at the same time.

Without explanation, the library was closed for three days. Inside, unknown to residents, officials of Canada and the U.S. were taking testimony for an international drug trial. Three Canadians had previously been extradited to Milwaukee to stand trial on federal charges.

They couldn't return to Canada with out "breaking" the extradition request.

But the primary witness against them, also a Canadian, was already in jail in Canada, and afraid to come to the U.S. because of outstanding charges against him. So the three Canadians were flown to Vermont and led in manacles through the front door of the library—in the U.S.—while the witness came in through the fire escape on the Canadian side. The hearing took place back and forth across the thick black line marking the location of the border across the floor of the library.