1918 Allan Mine Disaster
The deadliest coal mine disaster in the Pictou coalfield took place in 1918 at Stellarton’s Allan Mine. Newspaper stories written at the time contained details, many of them heartbreaking, about how the disaster impacted the families of the dead.
Historical accidents like the Allan Mine disaster are a key reason why the modern mining industry is so safety-focussed. Nova Scotia’s mining and quarrying industry has reduced its injury rate by 90% since 1997.
Today, the Allan Mine (aka Allan Shaft) is the site of Sobeys’ headquarters, an example of how former mines and quarries go on to serve communities other ways after extraction is done.
The Allan was known for having spontaneous fires and a total of eight explosions. Half of the explosions did not result in fatalities, but the most serious, on January 23, 1918, killed 88 men. Ninety-seven men were in the mine at the time of the explosion. Nine, who were lucky enough to be working near the 476-foot level, made it to the cage (elevator), signalled its operator and were lifted to safety. There were no other survivors.
The cause of the explosion was not definitively determined but the probable cause was a shot a (small blast to free coal from the coalface) that blew backwards on the 1200-foot level, leading to two gas explosions in the mine.
According to an article in the January 24 edition of the Evening Mail, “Sixty-five of the men killed in the explosion belonged to Stellarton, 15 belonged to Westville and 5 to New Glasgow. One woman, a Belgian, living in Stellarton and who lost her husband and three sons, went almost insane when she heard the news. On all sides could be heard women and children lamenting the loss of husband, father, son or brother. There were many other scenes just as pathetic.”
The January 24 article pointed out that the loss of life could have been much worse. Shortly before the disaster, mine managers had added a second daily shift to increase production, coal being of strategic importance during World War One. The day shift had 250 men underground, and the new night shift had about 100 men underground. The newspaper said, “It can be readily seen that if the explosion had occurred earlier in the day when the day shift men were at work, the loss of life would undoubtedly have been much greater.”
The January 25 edition of the Evening Mail said a “notable calmness and self-control is manifest in the crowds surrounding the shaft mouth at Stellarton. Anxiety and sorrow are stamped on the faces of the women and children, who cling to the scene of the explosion day and night, keeping weary vigils which cease not for sleep or rest.”
The Evening Mail estimated that 60 of the dead were leaving wives and children behind: “William Myers, whose body was brought up, leaves a widow and ten children; John McLellan has seven children; and so it runs, the average number being not less than five….”
The article described the sad realization that there would be almost no one for medical staff to try to help: “When the dread news of the disaster was heard, doctors and nurses hurried form the surrounding towns. Sisters from the Lourdes Convent were there, and the carpenter shop was fitted up as a hospital, with cots and stretchers, blankets, first aid appliances, and all the equipment that it was expected would be needed to attend to injured who would be brought up when the recue parties got to them. But here was a disaster where there was no place for doctors or nurses, for ALL in that fateful explosion were put beyond the aid of medical skill. The hospital became a morgue and all that nurses could do was by a kindly word or a sympathetic act comfort the bereaved.”
There was only one immediate survivor of the disaster brought to surface: “As for the miners, everyone of them was dead, and there were no injured or dying. There was but one exception – the early reports gave the name of Joseph Lohez as having been brought up alive and that the doctors had vainly sought to save the unconscious man with the pulmotor [a respiratory device]. They worked for three hours and then gave up, for death triumphed; but it was John W. McDonald, not Lohez, whose life they had striven to save. He was a young man and had been married only six months ago.”
The reporter applauded the miners who entered the mine in search of survivors and, later, to recover the dead: “The work of rescue was bravely done. No heroism on the battlefront could be greater than that of the men who went below to save life and, if that could not be done, to bring up the bodies of the dead.”
The January 26 edition also highlighted the rescue miners’ bravery: “The courage of the men who these days volunteer to go into the mine, to restore ventilation and search for the dead, passes admiration. There is no ‘compulsion’ about it. No man goes below unless he volunteers: and there are always more men ready to go than can be availed of. They go below in shifts of eight hours, not for the money they make, but for the good they can do. Blanch Tarbot furnishes an example of the spirit these volunteers manifest. He had been a miner, but gave up the work some time ago. His brother John is among those dead in the mine. ‘I want to sign on as a volunteer,’ he said to Mine Superintendent Higson today. ‘My brother is in the mine. Let me go with the others and do what I can in the search.’”
Another former miner, John Lennon, also volunteered to do rescue work even though he had not worked in the mine for a number of years and was then employed at the Trenton steel works.
The Evening Mail’s January 26 edition reported that only small progress had been made the previous day in the search for the 65 men still in the mine: “The group of women and children, hanging with natural fascination round the mouth of the Allan shaft at Stellarton, was distinctly smaller than before; not that their interest or their heartbreaking anxiety were less, but because, for the time being, there could be nothing to wait for. The searching parties go into the mine in search shifts of eight hours each. The men at work early this morning found the water suddenly rising. They knew the cause, but it became three feet higher in a very short time, and the fact was reported, the men being withdrawn [from the mine]. The motor for the electric pump had stopped and was effected [sic] by the water. A new one had to be installed.”
More trouble occurred: “But the rise of water was more than normal and a second pump was ordered from Springhill to arrive tonight. The abnormal rise, the officials believe, was due to the breakage of pipes, which had been used to drain the old Ford pit. The two pumps will, it is expected, not only keep out the normal inflow of water, but will make the mine dry again. Their combined capacity is 175 gallons per minute. This accident accounts for the cessation during part of the day of the search for the dead, and for a halt in the work of restoring ventilation in the mine.”
Four miners had been recovered late the previous night: “They were found on the 500 foot level. The bodies were absolutely unmarked. With coats on their arms and lamps in their hands, the men were overcome by the deadly after damp [carbon monoxide] following the explosion, with no disfigurement of their features or form…They evidently had started for the shaft when the indication of trouble was observed, had got a good way along, and would have escaped had they not met a body of returning ‘after damp,’ which stopped them, and they instantly fell dead. The mine men who escaped from this level had been nearer the exit and ahead of the gas or they also would have perished. No man could live thru the poison area the four unfortunate men had to penetrate.”
When bodies were found, “relatives do not see the bodies brought up till after they are attended to and prepared by the undertaker, unless the presence of friends is required for purposes of identification. Sorrows abound on every hand in Stellarton. At the home of Ferdinand Vaast is a touching spectacle. Within the little room is the body of the father of the family. Beside it are the remains of his son, August Vaast, and the searchers in the pit are looking for the body of his other son, Louis. It is a French family and in the humble home along with the dead, the widowed mother and her two remaining children, a girl and a boy keep vigil. Try to visualize the scene and realize the feelings of that widow and the two lonely children.”
Another sad example of the miners killed: “The body of William Walsh was sent home today for internment in his native Guysboro. He was only twenty years old, a saving, honest economical boy, such as this country can ill afford to lose. His mother, in speaking of her boy, said he had paid his first insurance premium the morning of the explosion. He had told his mother some days before that he had made up his to take out insurance. He was as good as his word. Though it was for only the comparatively small sum of $190, it serves to show the character of the lad for he had not yet reached manhood years.”
The Allan Mine.
Sobeys' headquarters, on the site of the reclaimed Allan Mine.
