Tragedy at the Franklin Hotel - by Jon Kopp

A wasted life! This sad refrain,

Comes surging through my ears again;

there’s no escape from thee, though fiend;

Thou art borne to me on every wind –

In 1906, quite a ruckus took place over a hockey game played between Huntington and Valleyfield (two Canadian towns, just north of the Franklin County border). Jack Morrison, a Huntingdon native who resided in Tupper Lake, was right in the thick of it. Morrison was a meat cutter and a famed member of early Tupper Lake hockey and skating teams. He was a top hockey player and landed the goalie berth on the Huntington team.

According to the March 2, 1906 Tupper Lake Herald; “A ‘friendly’ game was arranged with Valleyfield, and the Montreal papers carried quite an account of the tilt, played at Valleyfield. Before it was half over Valleyfield's several thousands rooters unlimbered their good right arms and began heaving over-ripe hen-fruit at the Huntington goalie, Mr. Morrison.”

 “The good folks of Valleyfield evidently had stocked up on eggs just for this game. There seemed to be no end to the supply. Somehow they learned that Jack Morrison hailed from Tupper Lake, and the hen-fruit barrage was accompanied by cries of ‘Back to the woods! Go back to Tupper Lake’! Several fans were injured in fights. Sticks and pop bottles accompanied the eggs. After the game, won by Huntington, 7-6, a squad of policemen escorted the winning team to the station to save them from being mobbed. The pop-bottles flew all the way to the station, and the train pulled out minus most of the windows. Two players and two commercial travelers who got caught in the ruckus were injured.” Nine years later, on a cold January night, the local hockey hero, Jack Morrison shocked the Tupper Lake community by killing young Ezra Albert in cold blood.

Ezra "Zeke" Alpert, was clerking and tending bar at the “Franklin Hotel”. Morrison had been drinking heavily and became angered when Ezra wouldn’t serve him any more booze. In a drunken rage he stormed out of the hotel. Soon after, he arrived back with his rifle and went to Ezra’s room where he shot the young 22 year old while he was dressing to go out on the town.

Gus Schauble, a boarder at the Franklin, was first to reach the scene of the dying man. Shocked at the vision he beheld, he ran and fetched Tupper Lake’s town constable, Henry Murphy.  The one-armed constable was a fearless man, known for his ability to break untamed horses or handle the most fractious team despite his handicap. He started upstairs after Alpert's slayer when a second shot was heard. He found Alpert dead and a wounded Morrison writhing on the floor. Morrison, so distraught at what he had done, fired a bullet through his own chest.

He survived the wound and after a seven week hospital stay it was deemed that he was healthy enough to stand trial. He was charged in Malone for the crime of murder.

On Wednesday, April 28, 1915, at 4:30 p. m. the evidence was all in and the jury retired to decide the fate of the prisoner. After ten hours deliberation the jury entered the court room at 3:00 a. m. with a verdict of murder in the second degree. Judge Borst, who had remained up all night, immediately sentenced Morrison to 20 years imprisonment in the prison at Dannemora.

At the trial Morrison was said to have been remorseful and was perturbed and embarrassed by the stares and glances of the large court room crowd of strangers, friends and acquaintances. When asked about his trial Morrison said that; “all he could do was to await his fate and trust in God.” He uttered the words with evident feeling and lapsed into an attitude of dejection as he spoke of the friendship which had always existed between the man whose death he had caused and himself.

After serving 14 years, he was discharged and returned to Tupper and worked at odd jobs for several years until 1936, where he died at the Franklin county welfare home in Malone.

A wasted life! A wasted life! By day or night, no peace for me;

Still, still before me I can see, the fragments of the dear dead past,

Which I (Oh! fool) from me have cast – 

From the poem “A Wasted Life” written by Illawarra Mercury in 1884