This tale is about renowned rum runner Herb Cavaca, who owned Horatio Hart’s farm (now known as Wingover Farm) on Crandall Road, and used it for storage for his “liquor industry” during Prohibition.
On June 23, 1928 an incident took place which came to be known as the “Battle of Hart’s Farm.” That morning, Goose, a rum-running speedboat, went out to the Row to pick up a little more than 800 cases of liquor. She came back to the Stone Dock in Tiverton late that night. Men with trucks met them to unload the haul. They felt that they were protected because a policeman kept watch for them up at Neck Road. Some hijackers showed up and the policeman gave a warning. Goose still was carrying 150 cases that hadn’t been unloaded, but Herb told the Captain to take the load back to the ship on the Row. Herb deployed his men and went to the touring car that was waiting up the road. He recognized three of the men as Johnny Campbell, Brago Brennan, and Slim Gilmore, all well-known in the rum-running business. Campbell announced that he wanted $1,500 for him and his associates and another $1,500 for a prohibition agent for whom he was a bagman. Herb refused. Campbell then said they were going to take two truckloads of liquor. An argument ensued and Herb sent one of his men to get some guns. He got his pump-action gun and he threatened to kill anyone who tried to seize any of his liquor. Chief of Police Potter came along and when he found out what was going on he urged Herb to pay the $3,000. Herb still refused. The hijackers drove off. Herb and a few of his men went off to the Hart Farm where they found that the trucks were being unloaded. As dawn came and the liquor was still being unloaded into the barn and the house, a couple of the hijackers showed up. It was Gilmore and Brennan and they both had guns in their belts. They said that they were there to warn Herb that he’d better pay the money to Campbell. If not, he would rat them out to the feds. Herb handed them $100 each to get rid of them and they went away. The liquor was stashed and the guards were posted, and on that Sunday morning all but the guards went to sleep for a while.
That afternoon, planning was done for a possible attack, as it was felt that the thieves were still in the area. If not the thieves, Herb felt, it would be the feds. Herb’s men were well-armed. The machine gun was placed in the skylight of the house and it was always manned. Around midnight, the lookout reported that he saw three “machines” stopped out on the road. Herb checked it out and saw them. Then two of the machines disappeared and the other one headed down toward the farm. The car pulled up to the house and soon thereafter Herb heard a shot. One of his men had been shot. Herb approached the car and asked what was going on. A gun was poked out of the back door of the car and Herb was shot in the side. He realized these were the thieves, not the feds, and he emptied his gun, seven shots, into the backseat of the car. Meanwhile, his men in the house also opened fire on the car. Those in the car got very upset and a couple of them tried to run away. Herb told his men to stop shooting and he told those in the car to get out and never come back. The car met with the two other cars and they drove off into the night. He wasn’t sure if any of the thieves had been wounded or killed, but he had a feeling that damage had been done. So now, Herb had two of the thieves who had escaped from the car, one of them wounded. He doctored up the man’s wounds and his own as well. The unwounded man was kept overnight and then released in the woods. Later Herb got the man and himself to a doctor in Adamsville where they were fixed up. The doctor took 67 birdshot out of Herb.
That night, John Morrill and Prohibition Agent Alvah H. Richardson drove up to the farm looking for Herb. After being told that Herb was not there, they asked if there was any liquor on the farm and when they were told no, they asked if they could take a look around. The door was slammed in Morrill’s face and he and Richardson drove off. That morning Herb had gone off to the doctor. When he was returning, he was intercepted by a few of his men who said that Morrill and Richardson had returned. He went to the farm and encountered Morrill. They had a confrontation and Herb advised Morrill of what he had missed the night before, fully realizing that Morrill and Richardson were probably the agents that Johnny Campbell had been referring to who were in on the deal.
The State Police got into this case when one of the wounded thieves went to Newport Hospital for treatment. Two others had gone to a hospital in Providence. Meanwhile, Morrill had searched around the farm and located a large stash of liquor in the “hide” in the barn. 
Herb, Morrill, and Richardson then had lunch and they advised him that he would be best off if he chose to accept a fine rather than fight this case. Herb went to court in Providence and was fined $750 and he got a suspended sentence. He also paid fines for three of his men which totaled $850 altogether. He also paid expensive legal fees.
Later on, the thieves were tried in Newport court. Johnny Campbell, who had a long arrest record, had a hung jury, but he was later (1929) arrested for robbing a government warehouse in Providence and on November 27, 1929 he was sentenced to serve 15 years in the federal penitentiary at Atlanta. Brago Brennan and Slim Gilmore were given deferred sentences for the Hart Farm raid, but they were arrested several times later on. Alvah H. Richardson, for several years the chief raiding officer of the Prohibition Service, was testified against by Johnny Campbell at Campbell’s trial and he was later indicted. In 1931 he was removed from the Prohibition Service.
Meanwhile, Herb and his men built a new hide in the woods – one which had a capacity of 1,800 cases. He continued to use this as long as he remained in the business.
[from Looking Back: Historic Tales of Newport County by James E. Garman]