Coal Black Heart (32 page)

Most of the description of the 1832 election battles comes from Brian Cuthbertson:
Johnny Bluenose at the Polls: Epic Nova Scotia Election Battles 1758–1848.
(Halifax: Formac Publishing, 1994), pp. 276-280.

The figure on coal imports to the United States comes from Brown,
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton,
p. 76.

The account of the Pictou strike of 1842 comes mainly from Cameron,
The Pictonian Colliers,
pp. 141–42.

The information on Samuel Cunard’s role in the GMA controversy comes from Phyllis Blakeley’s entry on Samuel Cunard in the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography
and Cameron,
The Pictonian Colliers,
pp. 28–30.

Williston Northampton School has a new school song. I found the words for the old one, sung in Whitney’s day, on the Wikipedia entry on the school (
http://www/en.wikipedia.org/Williston_Northamption_School
), which I truly hope to be true.

The information about Enos Collins’s career comes from his entry as an inductee in the Nova Scotia Junior Achievement Hall of Fame.

For the information on the troubles in Cape Breton I depend upon Robert Morgan,
Early Cape Breton from Founding to Famine.
(Sydney, N.S.: Breton Books, 2000). The quote from the woman from Loch Lomond is found on p. 141 of the same book, where the first quote from Norman McLeod is also found.

The appraisal of Norman McLeod comes from Rev. George Patterson,
History of the County of Pictou, 1877,
chapter 15. The other quote about McLeod comes from Rev. G.W. Blair, in “The Rev. Norman McLeod, Founder of the Waipu Charge,”
The Outlook,
September 23, 1929.

The moral dictator quote comes from the Canadian Encyclopedia’s entry on McLeod (
http://www.tinyurl.co/5voorc
).

Information about the speculative period following the GMA’s pullout comes from Hugh Millward, “Mine Operators and Mining Leases on Nova Scotia’s Sydney Coalfield, 1720 to the Present,” in
Nova Scotia Historical Review,
Vol. 13, number 2, 1993, pp. 69–77; Brown,
The Coal Fields of Cape Breton,
p. 138; and Hope Harrison, “The Life and Death of the Cumberland Coal Mines,”
Nova Scotia Historical Review,
Vol. 5, number 1, 1985, pp. 73-83.

Brown’s estimates of exploration licenses come from
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton,
p. 87.

The railway information comes from John Cameron’s article “A Legislative History of Nova Scotia Railways,” which can be found in the Railways of Canada online archives (
http://www.trainweb.org/canadianrailways/articles/LegislativeHistoryOfNSRailways.html
).

The figures for mine production, employment and locomotive employment come from the Nova Scotia Department of Mines’ Annual Report, 1871.

The anecdotes about coal mining’s arrival in Springhill are from Pat Crowe, “The Beginning of Coal Mining,”
Springhill Record, Jan.
11, 2006.

Springhill’s population growth comes from Ian MacKay, “The Realm of Uncertainty: The experience of work in the Cumberland coal mines 1873-1927”
in Acadiensis,
Autumn, 1986, p. 10.

The information about exploitation of the Cape Breton seams comes from Millward, “Mine locations and the Sequence of Coal Exploitation on the Sydney Coalfield, 1720-1980,” pp. 186-194.

The information about Hussey and the development of the Inverness mines comes from J.L. MacDougall’s
History of Inverness County, Nova Scotia,
1922, Chapter XI, The Town of Inverness, and Douglas F. Campbell:
Banking on Coal: Perspectives on a Cape Breton Community Within an International Context
(Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1997).

Hussey’s con game is recounted in Pamela Newton:
The Cape Breton Book of Days: A Daily Journal of the Life and Times of an Island
(Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1984).

The fact that by 1870 North Sydney was the fourth-busiest port in Canada comes from Brian Tennyson and Roger Sarty,
Guardian of the Gulf: Sydney, Cape Breton, and the Atlantic Wars
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), p. 98.

Information on Port Morien’s growth comes from Kenneth J. MacDonald,
Port Morien: Pages From the Past
(Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1995), along with John Udd, “Chronology of Mineral Development in Canada,” found on the Natural Resources Canada website (
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/ms/pdf/chron006_e.pdf
).

The 1871 populations of Port Morien and Lingan come from the 1871 Census of Canada. The population of Glace Bay, twenty years later, is quoted in Frank,
The 1922 Strike and the Roots of Class Conflict in the Cape Breton Coal Industry.

The list of occupations in the 1871 Census of Canada is quoted in appendix VI, Del Muise, “The Making of An Industrial Community: Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1867-1900,” in
Cape Breton Historical Essays,
(Sydney, N.S.: University College of Cape Breton Press, 1980).

The mobility of the colliery work force comes from Richard K. Fleishman
and David Oldroyd, “The Development of British and Canadian Coal-Mining Enterprise: A Comparative Study of Costing Methods, 1825-1900,” a paper which they presented to the Interdisciplinary Perspectives Conference, Manchester, U.K., July 2000.

The quotes about worker shortages come from the Immigrant Report of 1864, Halifax Arrivals, from Journals of the Assembly of Nova Scotia, as quoted on The Ship’s List website.

The impact of the end of the Civil War and the end of the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States comes from Mary Jane Lipkin, “Reluctant Recruitment: Nova Scotia Immigration Policy, 1867-1914,” master’s thesis, Carleton University, May 21, 1982, p. 10.

The exodus from Cape Breton is documented in Muise, “The Making of An Industrial Community: Cape Breton Coal Towns, 1867-1900,” appendix II. The notion that the Highlands clearances were being repeated in Cape Breton comes from p. 82 of the same source.

The MacKeen family background comes from David MacKeen’s great grandson, the journalist and author Peter Moreira. For information on MacKeen’s early career also see Donald MacGillivray’s entry on MacKeen in the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography
as well as Morgan,
Early Cape Breton from Founding to Famine,
p. 147.

An explanation of the iffy nature of the market for Nova Scotia coal can be found by perusing Frank, “The Cape Breton Coal Industry and the Rise and Fall of the British Empire Steel Corp,”
in Acadiensis,
Vol. VII, No. 1, 1977; Muise, “The Making of an industrial Community, Cape Breton Coal Towns 1867-1900,” appendix 1; and Brown,
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton,
p. 88.

The line about Cape Breton coal mines having a one-in-four chance of succeeding comes from MacGillivray, “Henry Melville Whitney Comes to Cape Breton: The Saga of a Gilded Age Entrepreneur,” p. 52.

The stuff about coal duties comes from Frank, “The Cape Breton Coal Industry and the Rise and Fall of the British Empire Steel Corp,” p. 113.

The information about Whitney’s ascendance in Nova Scotia comes mainly from MacGillivray, “Henry Melville Whitney Comes to Cape Breton: The Saga of a Gilded Age Entrepreneur,” which is also the source of Fielding’s quote on p. 55 and the information about the stock offering on pages 55-56.

Whitney’s acquisition of most of the mining leases in the Sydney areas comes from
The Canadian Mining Review,
August 1894.

The details of the Boston Syndicate’s strategy came from Frank, “Coal Masters and Coal Miners: The 1922 Strike and the Roots of Class Conflict in the Cape Breton Coal Industry,” p. 13; Brown,
The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton,
pp. 125-127; and MacGillivray, “Henry Melville Whitney Comes to Cape Breton: The Saga of a Gilded Age Entrepreneur,” pp. 56-57.

The piece in the
Canadian Mining Review
appeared in August 1894, p. 132.

Information about Dominion Coal’s recruitment plan—including the advertising campaign—comes from the Cape Breton Miner’s Museum website (
http://www.minersmuseum.com/history_of_mining.htm
). Nova Scotia’s immigration recruitment plan is detailed in Lipkin, “Reluctant Recruitment: Nova Scotia Immigration Policy, 1867-1914,” pp. 16-22.

The information from the passenger list for the
Siberian
is filed with Library and Archives Canada’s collection of passenger lists, 1865-1922, viewable on the Library and Archives Canada website (
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/passengers/index-e.html
).

The description of the early days of the Princess mine comes from Frank
J.B. McLachlan: A Biography: The Story of a Legendary Labour Leader and the Cape Breton Coal Miners,
p. 49.

The background on the town of Sydney Mines comes from
The History of Sydney Mines.
Sydney Mines: 1990. p. 11.

The story of the Briers family in Sydney Mines comes from my mother, Joan DeMont, and cousin, Lynda Singer.

Joseph Desbarres’s encouragement of the United Empire Loyalists to come to Cape Breton comes from Robert Morgan’s entry on DesBarres in the
Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

The arrival of the Gaels in the Sydney area comes via Stephen Hornsby
Nineteenth-Century Cape Breton: A Historical Geography,
p. 41.

For the story of the end of Whitney’s Nova Scotian adventure I depend upon Donald MacGillivray, “Henry Melville Whitney Comes to Cape Breton: The Saga of a Gilded Age Entrepreneur,” and Lawson,
Frenzied Finance:
The Crime of Amalgamated.

Information about the 1896 Smoke Nuisance Law is from James R. Alexander,
Jaybird: A.J. Moxham and the Manufacture of the Johnson Rail
(Johnstown, Pa.: Johnstown Area Heritage Association, 1991), supplement to the epilogue.

Most of the information about Whitney’s ornate scheme comes from Lawson,
Frenzied Finance: The Crime of Amalgamated,
pp. 151–161.

The connection between the Whitney fiasco and its aftermath is made by Frank,
Coal Masters and Coal Miners: The 1922 Strike and the Roots of Class
Conflict in the Cape Breton Coal Industry,
p. 11.

The Acheson quotes come from his article “The National Policy and the Industrialization of the Maritimes 1880-1910,”
Acadiensis,
Spring 1972, p. 3.

The summary of the Canadian economy at the start of the twentieth century comes from William Thomas Easterbrook and Hugh G.J. Aitken,
Canadian Economic History.
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), pp. 381-409.

The New Glasgow as “the Birmingham of the Country” line—along with the information about the Nova Scotia Steel Company—comes from Acheson, “The National Policy and the Industrialization of the Maritimes, 1890-1910,”
Acadiensis,
pp. 20-21.

Laurier is quoted in Ron Crawley, “Off to Sydney: Newfoundlanders Emigrate
to Industrial Cape Breton 1890-1914,”
Acadiensis,
Volume XVII, no. 2, (Spring 1988), p. 147.

Whitney’s arrangement for the steel plant, along with the subsequent stock issue, comes from MacGillivray, “Henry Melville Whitney Comes to Cape Breton: The Saga of a Gilded Age Entrepreneur,” pp. 65-67.

The information on James Ross comes from
Montreal, Pictorial and Biographical.
(Winnipeg: S.J. Clarke, 1914).

The figure for Sydney coal production in 1902 comes from Frank, “Coal Masters and Coal Miners: The 1922 Strike and the Roots of Class Conflict in the Cape Breton Coal Industry,” p. 15.

The Briers information in section 4 comes from the 1891, 1901 and 1911 censuses of Canada and genealogical information.

The 1901 population of Cape Breton County and Sydney comes from the Census of Canada, 1901. So does the occupational information.

The information about the exodus from Newfoundland comes from Ron Crawley, “Off to Sydney: Newfoundlanders Emigrate to Industrial Cape Breton 1890-1914,”
Acadiensis,
pp. 27-51. The ditty from the St. John’s
Daily News
is quoted on p. 28 of the same source.

The information about Sydney Mines circa 1902 comes via the Sydney Mines Online website and The History of Sydney Mines.

The stuff about Arthur Lismer’s east coast excursion comes from Jeremy Adamson,
Lawren S. Harris: Urban Scenes and Wilderness Landscapes
1906–1930
(Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1978), pp. 110-114.

The Hugh MacLennan quote comes from
Each Mans Son
(Macmillan of Canada, 1951), p. 7.

The Ann-Marie MacDonald quote comes from
Fall On Your Knees
(Toronto: Seal Books, 2003), p. 1.

The information about the company houses in Pictou County is from Cameron,
The Pictou Colliers,
p. 104.

The names of the Sydney Mines houses come via “Looking Back,” a pamphlet published by the Sydney Mines Historical Society.

The thousand company tenements in 1901—along with the quote from Ralph Ripley—comes from Ralph Ripley, “The Growth of a Mining Town,” a pamphlet published in 1977.

I learned about the connection between miners and gardening from Robert McIntosh,
Boys in the Pits: Child Labour in Coal Mines
(Montreal and Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), p. 114.

The anecdote about the Sydney Mines bathing practices—and about miners finally being able to fix up their homes—comes from “Looking Back,” published by the Sydney Mines Historical Society.

My main source on the company store is John Mellor,
The Company Store:
J.B. McLachlan and the Cape Breton Coal Miners 1900–1925
(Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1983). The Bill McNeil quotes are from the same source, pp. x and xi.

Among other places the material about the pervasiveness of the company in colliery towns comes from Chyrssa McAlister and Peter Twohig, “The Check-off: A precursor of Medicare in Canada?” in the
Canadian Medical
Association Journal,
December 6, 2005.