Not Your Grandfathers Mining Industry, Nova Scotia, Canada

James MacDonald’s Thefts

First, he stole the gold. Then he got so drunk that he forgot where he put it. Lastly, he got caught because he committed another crime while trying to find it. Here is the story of James MacDonald’s thefts from the Renfrew gold mine.

Starting with the province’s first gold rush in the early 1860s, theft from mines was a significant problem, perhaps not surprisingly given the value of the gold and the ease with which it could be stolen in that era. Miners extracting nuggets of gold in small, dark tunnels could easily slip gold into their pockets and later sell it. In fact, an 1868 book by Alexander Heatherington estimated that 10% of gold mined in Nova Scotia at that time was pilfered underground.

Decades later, theft at gold mines was still a problem, as the case of James MacDonald illustrates.

In 1900, MacDonald was working in the Renfrew gold mine, in Hants County, which was then-operated by two brothers, E. and C. Thompson. The Thompsons, who took over the mine that year, employed 12 men.

MacDonald had known Joseph Ferguson, a jeweller and saloon keeper on Upper Water Street in Halifax, for about three years. MacDonald would later claim that he had never stolen gold from a mine, until Ferguson asked one day whether MacDonald could. With the seed having been planted, MacDonald went on to sell Ferguson gold stolen from the Renfrew mine four times.

MacDonald understood that Ferguson was also purchasing stolen gold from other miners, and that he made periodic trips to Boston to sell the gold to jewellers and other purchasers.

The Thompsons, like many historical gold mine operators, often searched miners as they ended their shifts to try to prevent theft. However, MacDonald said the Thompsons placed “too much confidence in him and he abused their confidence,” as the Halifax Herald’s October 6, 1900, edition put it. For whatever reason, MacDonald was not searched and in total, he stole $2000 worth of gold.

MacDonald did it by hiding small nuggets and gold-bearing quartz in his clothing on different days. Hiding in the woods, he would do a rudimentary job of extracting the gold from the quartz using mercury. He then wrapped the gold in paper and hid it in his “valise” (suitcase). On days off, he would take the gold to Halifax to sell.

Ferguson paid MacDonald $15 per ounce of gold, about 25% less than the $19.97 that the Thompson brothers were selling gold for legitimately. Ferguson had earlier offered MacDonald $60 for one lot of gold, but MacDonald held out for $100, and Ferguson eventually agreed. Gold miners were paid about $1.50 per day in that era, so MacDonald’s profits from stealing were considerable.

All of this came to light because MacDonald, on one of his trips to Halifax, got drunk before meeting with Ferguson and lost his suitcase. As the Herald described it, “MacDonald owes the discovery of the stuff in his possession to getting under the influence of liquor and mislaying the valise. When he sobered up he did not know where he left the valise or who had it.”

MacDonald, desperate to find the gold, set out on the evening of Saturday, September 30, to look for his suitcase. MacDonald was accompanied by two men who had robbed him of $400 Ferguson had paid him on a previous trip to Halifax. It is not explained in the newspaper reports why MacDonald would be associating with men who had previously robbed him, but it is possible the men had learned of the misplaced gold from MacDonald while he was drunk and were planning to rob him again.

At some point on that Saturday evening, the three men went to the store of Captain Allen, a Yarmouth-born master mariner and serial entrepreneur. MacDonald thought he might have left his suitcase in Allen’s store.

Allen later told the police that he saw MacDonald steal an orange. He went to the door to shout for the police but one of the men with MacDonald knocked Allen down, took Allen’s cane and threatened to beat him with it if he made any noise. The men then ran out of the store.

(Allen walked with a cane because years earlier in the West Indies, he had fallen on the deck of his ship during a storm and broken his leg. He went 14 days at sea without medical attention. He largely recovered but his broken leg did not heal properly.)

As a result of the incident at Allen’s store, MacDonald was interviewed by a Detective Power and he came clean about everything. He told the detective about stealing gold from the Renfrew mine, about having been robbed by the two men previously, and how he had lost the suitcase while drunk.

MacDonald even flipped on his brother-in-law, either Alfred or James Quibble according to conflicting reports, who had been a partner in the crimes. Quibble (also spelled Quible in some reports) worked in the mine with MacDonald and helped sneak the gold out.

MacDonald said some of the gold was still hidden in the woods in Renfrew, about 100 yards from the main road.

The lost suitcase was recovered at some point during all this – it is not clear whether it was, in fact, at Captain Allen’s store – so Detective Power had the evidence of the gold theft.

Ferguson was in Boston at the time of MacDonald’s arrest and was immediately arrested when he returned, “on the charge of receiving and purchasing gold. Knowing the same to have been stolen,” as the Herald put it.

Despite some losses from theft, the Thompson brothers made excellent money – legally - with the Renfrew mine. From May 1900 to August 1901, they produced 5,470 ounces of gold from just 452 tons of ore milled, an average of about 12 ounces of gold per ton. To put that in perspective, Nova Scotia’s successful historical gold mines often produced an average of one ounce per ton or less, so 12 ounces per ton was spectacular. Output at modern gold mines is measured in grams per ton, not ounces, so such high historical ore grades are mostly a thing of the past.

The 5,470 ounces of gold produced in the Thompsons’ first year of operations were worth about $104,000 at the time, approximately $4 million today.

The Thompsons sold the mine in 1902 to the Pictou Development Company.

Gold was discovered in Renfrew, originally known as Nine Mile River, in 1861 by William Thompson who found a boulder that contained gold on the banks of the brook near his saw mill. Later that year, John McPhee discovered additional quartz veins near Thompson's mill. These discoveries led to a swirl of activity by many small companies and prospectors staking claims. At one point, the town had 700 resident miners, a post office, a school, two bars, two hotels, a bakery, numerous stores, blacksmith shops, stables for 50 horses, and two miles of wooden boardwalk.