Grand Island Murders

On June 12, 1908, a boat floating near the southern shore of Lake Superior aroused the curiosity of a couple of local hunters. They could see the broken mast of the yawl and the sail draped over the gunwale. They didn’t see anyone in the boat, so they waded out to see what was happening. The men looked in the boat to find a body face down in the water. Shocked and surprised with their discovery, they didn’t waste any time reporting what they had found to authorities.

Captain Benjamin Trudell of the Grand Marais Life Station came out to investigate. His first look at the boat revealed to him that it belonged to the U.S. Lighthouse Service, and Captain Trudell also knew that it was one belonging to the Old North Lighthouse on Grand Island. Further inspection of the contents of the boat established that the dead man wore the uniform of someone in the United States Lighthouse Service. Trudell knew the keeper at Old North Lighthouse, but when he lifted the man’s head and looked at his face, he knew it was not George Genry. They guessed that the body was of the Assistant Lighthouse Keeper at Old North Lighthouse on Grand Island, Edward Morrison.

The coroner of Grand Marais, where the body was found, impaneled a jury, and they determined the man “died of exposure and from injuries unknown to all here.”

Edward Morrison was from Flint, Michigan, and had only worked for George Genry one month before his untimely death and discovery of his body in a U. S. Lighthouse yawl 20 miles from his workstation.