J. E. “Eddie” Marcotte (1861 - 1939)
Eddie Marcotte was born in St. Basile, Quebec, the sixth child in a family of nine. He was in the jewellery business in Quebec City before moving to Waltham, Mass. where he owned a first-class jewellery store. He disposed of the business and became a log scaler. In 1901, he was in Duluth learning the trade of barbering before coming up the coast from Seattle to Skagway. He and Gus Jensen prospected at Bennett, British Columbia, before they moved on to Whitehorse in 1902.1)
Marcotte worked for Frank Young for a short time and then worked at Locasto’s barber shop. In 1903, he started his own shop, at a site later occupied by the Macpherson Drug Store, and later sold out to a Mr. Johnson for $100. He went prospecting in the Alsex [sic] district where he had ten claims. On Sundays, he worked as a barber in Jack McLean’s roadhouse on Ruby Creek. Later in the year he opened a barber shop in the Whitehorse Windsor Hotel before it burned in 1905. He continued to operate as a barber in several locations around Whitehorse. In 1915, he started farming foxes on the other side of the Yukon River, and about this time he acquired the old Commercial Hotel from the late Robert Lowe.2)
In April 1924, Eddie was at the firehall cutting hair when a fire broke out in the tower at his fox farm. The fire department and citizens were quick to respond to the siren and hauled the fire hose to the fire across the river. Neither the foxes nor other parts of the ranch suffered from the fire.3) In December 1924, Marcotte brought in four choice fox skins from his ranch across the Yukon River. Taylor and Drury Ltd. paid over four figures for the skins even though the London markets had recently dropped by thirty percent.4)
In 1925, W.E. Williams and his took over management of the Commercial Hotel and planned to renovate the popular hostelry.5) Marcotte was still a practicing barber when he died at the Whitehorse hospital after suffering from pneumonia.6)