In 1872 Napoleon Lavalee built the Mississippi Hotel now called the Greystone Hotel on land that was originally deeded in 1824 to Carleton Place, Ontario settler, William Morphy. Lavallee operated it as a hotel and the town council meetings were held there until 1883. Of course as any small-town hotel in those days, there was a room in the back where gentleman played cards complete with an automatic cigar lighter. There was said to be three deaths in the hotel during the Lavalee ownership even though no records can be found. Some thought they had occurred when it was a TB hospice or from an argument over gambling debts,
However in 1874 – (you knew that all had to end!)
Members of the Carleton Place Council were John Graham, reeve, and William Taylor, John F. Cram, Dr. William Wilson and James Morphy. Public billiard and pool tables were prohibited. The next year’s Council permitted their operation under municipal licence. A press report stated the Council of Carleton Place have passed a by-law prohibiting the keeping of billiard, bagatelle and pigeon-hole tables for public resort in that village, under a penalty of not less than $25. The reasons for this stringent step as set forth in the preamble to the bylaw are contained in the following paragraph : As gambling is a vice of a very aggravated nature, which encourages drunkenness, profane swearing and frequently causes the ruin of both body and soul of those addicted to it, and not infrequently murder, it should therefore be discountenanced and suppressed within the Corporation of Carleton Place.
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