John Scott Williams

Many Nova Scotians left the province to seek their fortunes in gold rushes in places like the Klondike. Some got rich, but most did not. John Scott Williams was one of the lucky ones.

Williams, born in Bailey’s Brook, Antigonish County, in 1839, worked as a gold miner in Goldenville, Guysborough County. (An article published in a number of newspapers after his death mistakenly referred to it as “Gilliesburg” County.)

Williams’ name started appearing in Nova Scotia Department of Mines records in connection with Goldenville in the early 1880s. He did some work on the Gladstone property in 1881 and by 1884, he was described as “One of the best paid operators” in the district when he ran several mines that year.

He worked in Goldenville for the rest of the 1880s, but gold production in the district declined in that period and Williams was no longer mentioned in the department’s annual reports by the 1890s.

In 1897, he moved his family to British Columbia and then to the Yukon the following year during the Klondike gold rush.

According to an article published in British Columbian newspapers after his death, “He fought his way over the perilous trail of ’98, showing a strong steadiness of purpose, and yet a spirit of sympathy that won him the lasting friendship of his fellow adventurers. He was 60 years of age when he underwent the hardships of the Yukon gold rush, but his unusual reserve of vitality and energy fitted him to keep pace with youths in the prime of life.”

He became “one of the most widely known pioneers of the Yukon,” according to the article: “Driving his stakes on the hillside at Hunker Creek, he worked the ground and struck it rich.”

Williams worked the “Thirty-Five Hillside claim,” meaning the 35th claim on the hill by Hunter Creek, not a claim along the creek itself. He also “obtained the right to mine the five-mile Williams concession.”

Williams retired in 1902 and he and his wife, Sarah (née Cameron), pictured below in 1911, moved to Vancouver. They lived close to English Bay and Williams “was known to scores of youngsters at the beach, to whom his kindly manner endeared him. Until he was eighty-four years of age he swam each Summer at the Bay, and skated in Winter at Lost Lagoon and Trout Lake.”

He died in 1923 at the age of 85 due to bronchitis. At the time of his death, he and Sarah were living at 1662 Beach Avenue in Vancouver.

A notable part of Williams’ legacy was his grandson, also named John Scott Williams, who was born in Goldenville. He enlisted as a private in World War One and became a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, winning the Military Cross and Air Force Cross. He was mentioned in dispatches “For conspicuous skill and gallantry when attacking enemy machines. On one occasion, with another officer as pilot, he brought down two enemy machines.”

After the war, he organized the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1921. He also started one of Canada’s first commercial airlines, flying mail in and out of Noranda goldfields in Quebec. Prior to World War Two, he operated a gold mine in Nova Scotia. John Scott Williams, the grandson, passed away in 1944 at the age of 51.