Not Your Grandfathers Mining Industry, Nova Scotia, Canada

Alonzo Hayward

Alonzo A. Hayward was one of Nova Scotia’s many successful historical miners whose names are largely forgotten now. However, he had a lasting influence on the province by playing a key role in the establishment of the Nova Scotia Technical College.

Hayward was born in 1853 in Milford, Massachusetts. He became a mining engineer and moved to Waverley, Halifax County, as a young man to work in the area’s gold mines. He went on to work in a number of Nova Scotia’s other historical gold districts, including Montague, Renfrew, Cow Bay and South Uniacke, mainly during the 1880s and 1890s.

While most of his career focussed on gold mining, Hayward’s biggest success was likely a tungsten mine.

There is no record of Hayward doing gold mining in the Moose River gold district, but it was perhaps through his interest in gold that he became involved in the Stillwater Brook area of Moose River where tungstite, a mineral formed by the weathering of other tungsten-containing minerals, was discovered in In November 1907.

Scheelite, a mineral from which the metal tungsten is often extracted, was found there in 1908 and a mine was established. Hayward took the mine over in 1910 and ran it on behalf of a syndicate that included Robert L. Borden, who was born in Grand Pré, Kings County, and became Canada’s eighth prime minister in 1911.

The Evening Mail’s March 17, 1911, edition described what life was like at the mine: “The work was done under great difficulties as the deposit is several miles in the woods back of Moose River. Supplies had to be hauled for a long distance over roads specially constructed, to afford access to the mines. At first tents were erected for the workmen. These gave way to houses. A saw mill was erected and the wood taken from the area cleared was converted into lumber from which the houses were built. A shop was opened and a miniature town was built on the property. To this the name of Scheelite was given by Mr. Hayward.”

The name Scheelite did not stick, and the area is still called Stillwater Brook today.

The newspaper said, “Mrs. Hayward shared with her husband the hardships attendant on pioneering life in the wilds, going after the settlement had been established. The work of development went on and at the present time about 35 or 40 people are engaged in work at Scheelite. Mr. Hayward took a pride in his settlement, and profanity, intemperance kindred vices were debarred from the place.”

The Canadian Mining Journal’s September 15, 1910, edition highlighted that Hayward’s mining camp was more orderly than most in that era: “Incidentally, though perhaps the subject deserves more than incidental mention, every building and every dwelling is kept in a condition of thorough cleanliness. The cook-house is spotless. The sleeping tents are fitted with immaculate double-deck iron beds. Nowhere is uncleanliness of any kind permitted. The sanitary arrangements are most effective. It is quite apparent that the men are encouraged to live up to a strict hygienic standard.”

Hayward had only operated the mine for about a year when he sold it to “a syndicate of prominent Canadians for an amount said to be in the vicinity of a quarter of a million dollars,” according to the Evening Mail (about $6.5 million in today’s dollars).

The newspaper called it “The biggest mining deal in the history of the province, with the exception of coal mine deals.” (Despite the newspaper’s excitement, it misspelled his name as “Haywood” in its headline before spelling it correctly throughout the article.)

According to the Evening Mail, the Nova Scotian who discovered the deposit “went to California where he exhibited the specimen of ore. It was found to be rich in tungsten. The California men sent the Nova Scotian back to locate the find and to purchase the property. Altho [sic] the discoverer spent a summer near Moose River he failed to locate the scene of his first find. Some time later two Moose River men made a discovery at what is now Scheelite. They took up two half mile blocks. Mr. Hayward took up a third half mile block and subsequently secured an option on the interests of the Moose River men, which he has since taken advantage of.”

John A. Reynolds and W. A. Currie of Moose River made the original discovery of tungstite in 1907, but the article does not specify whether it was one of them who went to California.

Despite the significant sale price, and the May 9, 1911, edition of the Evening Mail calling it “the richest tungsten mine in the world,” extraction took place only sporadically until 1919 when the site was last mined.

Tungsten is considered a critical mineral today. It is the metal with the highest melting point (3,422 °C) and is often mixed with other metals to make alloys that have high temperature tolerance, high corrosion resistance and excellent welding properties. These superalloys are used in the aerospace and automotive industries in things like airplane turbine blades and wear-resistant parts and coatings.

Hayward also played a key role in the establishment of the Nova Scotia Technical College, which later became the Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS). The need for Nova Scotia to have more technical and scientific training was discussed for years around the beginning of the 1900s. Industries like mining and steel manufacturing were particularly in need of a more educated workforce with sophisticated scientific knowledge.

Competing engineering diploma programs had been established by four universities in the province, but no institution could afford to operate a full engineering program.

It was Hayward, in his role as president of the Mining Society of Nova Scotia, who arranged a meeting in 1906 of the Halifax Board of Trade, Mining Society and the four universities. The meeting led to the organizations calling on the provincial government to establish a degree-granting technical college.

Hayward continued to build support for the concept and the Nova Scotia Technical College (NSTC) was founded in 1907 to provide the final two years of Bachelors degree instruction in Engineering, and to engage in industrial and scientific research. In 1978, the College was re-named the Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS) and in 1997, TUNS became a separate college within Dalhousie University.

The Evening Mail’s November 15, 1907, edition said this about the establishment of the NSTC: “If there is one body more than any other to whom the credit for this great addition to the educational equipment of Nova Scotia is to be attributed, that body is the Mining Society of Nova Scotia. It was that society which, under the presidency of A. A. Hayward, took the initiative in bringing the representatives of the different universities together to talk over the idea when the project was launched…After this conference the project was nursed along by the Mining society, largely through the personal efforts of Mr. Hayward….”

Hayward passed away on April 8, 1921, at his home in the Marlborough Woods area of south end Halifax, “following long illness borne with a quiet heroic fortitude and cheerfulness,” according to the Evening Mail. Hayward had made “a host of friends, one and all of whom will receive news of his death with unfeigned sorrow…Sterling, companionable, a faithful friend, a public spirited citizen, wide is the circle in which he will be missed and mourned.”

He was 68 years old and was buried in Camp Hill Cemetery.