Not Your Grandfathers Mining Industry, Nova Scotia, Canada

John’s Vaughn

John Vaughn died in an accident at a gold mine in Montague. Historical accidents like his are partly why the modern mining and quarrying industry is so safety focussed.

Vaughn worked for the Clark Gold Mines Corporation in 1923, a new company that had just bought the rights to most of the historical Montague gold district in Halifax County.

On Saturday, October 27, he was being hoisted up the mine shaft on the skip (elevator) when it is believed that he slipped and fell to the bottom of the 200-foot shaft.

According to the Evening Mail, “No one was in the vicinity at the time of the accident and the first intimation that anything was wrong came when Vaughn with one arm and one leg crushed, and suffering from internal injuries, dragged himself to within reach of the end of a bell rope used in the operation of the skip and pulled it until help came. The tolling of the bell was heard by miners and a party immediately investigated. As the men were nearing him, Vaughn called to them feebly to be careful not to let the skip fall on him. He was brought to the surface where he lost consciousness and was taken to him home.”

At Vaughn’s house, “Dr. Smith, of Dartmouth, was called and everything possible was done to restore him.” However, Vaughn died from his injuries. He was 29 years old and unmarried.

Today, Nova Scotia’s mining and quarrying industry believes the most important thing to come out of a mine is the miner, and our modern safety record reflects this. Injury rates in the province’s mining and quarrying industry have been reduced 90% since the 1997 Westray public inquiry.

In 1923, Clark Gold Mines deepened the shaft on Montague’s Skerry lead (gold-bearing quartz vein) and extended tunnels off the shaft. A total of twenty-two leads were cut (intersected) in this work and short tunnels were driven on several of them to determine their value.

Clark also brought hydro power to Montague from the then-new St. Margaret’s Bay hydro plant, which was built in 1920-22 and is now the oldest hydro plant in Nova Scotia.

The company improved equipment at the mines and made plans to replace the existing 10-stamp mill with a 50-stamp mill and concentrating plant that could produce both gold and arsenic concentrates.

In 2023, the company shipped two hundred tons of gold and arsenic concentrates to Europe.

Despite this strong start in its first year of operations, the Nova Scotia Department of Mines annual report for 1924 said, “Very little productive mining was done” the following year. “Owing to the death of the president, the late Mr. H. M. Clark of Pittsburgh, Pa., who controlled the majority of the company’s holdings, the corporation was compelled to temporarily suspend operations pending the settlement of the estate of the late president. However, they contemplate recommencing operations in the early spring.”

However, only a modest amount of work was done in 1925 and the company shut down.