The Black Snake would sneak into St. Albans Bay at night, take on a cargo of potash, and then slip through various creeks and inlets into Missisquoi Bay, across Cook’s Bay, and into Canada at a point about one mile north of Alburg Springs.
Customs officers tried without success for months to halt the operations of the Black Snake. At last, in August, 1808, government officials detailed Lt. Daniel Farrington, Sgt. David D. Johnson, and twelve infantry privates to board the Customs boat, The Fly. Their orders were to pursue the Black Snake until its capture.
On the night of August 2, the Black Snake moved into the Onion River to take on a cargo of potash. The commander of the craft was Truman Mudgett of Highgate, a burly, thick-chested man whose defiance of the Customs officers had made his craft famous.
Mudgett knew that The Fly was in the area seeking his hiding place, and throughout the night he and his crew oiled and tested their rifles at their camp site on the bank of the river. They also test-fired their small artillery piece, a gun 8 feet long with a bore of 1¼ inches which fired fifteen 16-ounce slugs of lead. They had long poles for fending off a boarding party, 3-foot-long clubs, and baskets filled with stones the size of a man’s fist.
The poles were to be used first to prevent anyone boarding the Black Snake. If this did not succeed, then the crew were to use the clubs and stones. As a last resort, they were to defend themselves with the guns.
At daybreak on August 3, a lookout came racing to the camp to warn the smugglers that The Fly was moving up the Onion River. Within a few minutes the revenue cutter came into view and closed on the Black Snake.
Mudgett shouted at Lieutenant Farrington: “I’ll blow the first man through who lays his hand on the Snake!”
Farrington coolly ignored the warning. He leaped from The Fly onto the Black Snake and ordered Sergeant Johnson to come aboard with six men and commandeer the outlaw craft.
“You’ll never get out of this river alive,” shouted Mudgett as he turned and ran back into the woods to rejoin his men.
Farrington sent four soldiers ashore to search for the crew of the Black Snake and then he returned to the helm of the cutter and started downstream with his prize. They had gone about half a mile when the smugglers opened fire from behind an embankment above the river. Farrington ordered Pvt. Elias Drake to take the helm of the cutter, but as Drake reached for the helm a bullet tore through his head and killed him instantly.