Mystery murders at Belfast Canal
Warehouse
by Cindy Edney (Great Circle
Adventures)
Let's go back to 1853, when the Genesee
Valley Canal arrived in Belfast with much pomp and celebration. A
large warehouse was built the next year along the canal at West
Hughes Street. The three-story structure was the shipping and
receiving center for everything and everyone that moved along the
canal through Belfast.
Within 20 years, fortunes had changed. The
Pennsylvania Railroad bought the towpath, and built its depot almost
directly across the street. The warehouse lay abandoned. But soon
the warehouse acquired a new life. Around 1905 the place was
purchased by Mike and Antoinette DeCilio. Soon the hand-hewn beams
and wooden walls were covered with gaudy wallpaper. The first floor
became a barroom and
the
second floor
was partitioned into tiny "bedrooms'. The old
warehouse was a new whorehouse!
With three railroads laying tracks through town,
Belfast was a 'gun-totin' boomtown. It boasted four hotels downtown
and numerous flophouses in the "Little Italy" district, where
workers built their flimsy shanties.
Plenty of shenanigans went on around DeCilio's, but
the most infamous occurred on the night of April 20, 1910. That
night, an angry exchange led to gunfire. When it was over, deputy
sheriff Norman Chalker lay dead. Bruce Gleason, owner of a nearby
bar who had rushed over to investigate the noise, died the next day
of gunshot wounds. With the murders, it became apparent to the fine
citizens of Belfast that happenings at DeCilio's could lead to
embarrassing situations, particularly since so many of them could be
called as witnesses at the upcoming murder trial. Three months after
the slayings, DeCilio's was raided. Unlike previous occasions, where
charges had either been dropped or fines paid (some say the Mafia
was involved), this time the charges stuck. Justice was swift.
Although the trial was almost farcical the DeCilio's were
charged with "conducting a disorderly house" and ordered
to leave Allegany County never to return.
Eventually the Decilio's son-in-law, Fred DeCapua,
was tried for the double murder. He was acquitted in another shabby
excuse of a trial. After the hasty departure of the DeCelio's,
the brothel once again became warehouse for tools, machinery and
farm implements, passing through several owners.
But its notoriety would not lay sleeping. In 1942,
the other Decilio son-in-law, Lucio Vicchiano who had fled the night
of the murders, was brought back from Birmingham, AL to stand trial.
Evidently there was "bad blood" amongst the DeCilio clan
that had simmered for 32 years. Lucio too was acquitted. The
warehouse, and the village, returned to dormancy.
In 1990 the Belfast Lions Club purchased the
property, with plans to restore the building. "If it hadn't
been purchased, it would have been torn clown," Bill Heaney, Lions
Club member, said. The plan envisions a combination of Canal Museum
and Community Center. Preliminary work has been done to stabilize
the deterioration and confirm the building's authenticity as the
only remaining canal structure still at its original site. With
local support, perhaps this old derelict will once again stand tall
and proud, the center of activity for the community.
