John Hill

Countless Nova Scotians are descended from miners that immigrated here to start new lives. John S. Hill, from Lancaster, England, was one of those miners.

Hill gained his experience as a miner working in Cornwall, which was famous for its copper and tin mines in the 1800s. He came to Nova Scotia in 1876 along with a group of other Cornish miners. He first worked at the Londonderry iron mines in Colchester County but later moved to Torbrook, Annapolis County, and worked in iron mines there.

He later worked at E. Churchill & Sons’ manganese mines in Hants County and lived out his days in the Tennycape area, where the largest of the county’s manganese mines was located. Ezra Churchill (1804-74) built a shipbuilding empire in Hants County but also had interests in mining and was a politician.

While Hill became somewhat well-known as a miner in Nova Scotia, there is little documentation of his life since he was working, or perhaps later in life, middle class. However, a couple newspaper articles tell us a little more about him.

In December 1895, he submitted a letter to the Halifax Herald which said, “In the early part of the winter I caught a bad cold, followed by a severe cough. I could not sleep as my lungs seemed closed up. I could walk only a few yards without stopping to get breath. I sent for William’s Cod Liver Oil Emulsion, and before I had finished the third bottle the cough was gone – I could breathe freely and felt like a new man. I advise all suffering from coughs, cold and asthma to give your Emulsion a trial.”

It may just be a coincidence, but Hill died two years later from a lung-related illness. According to the October 4, 1897, edition of the Herald, Hill, “being apparently in his usual health, was suddenly seized with hemorrhage of the lungs and expired. Mr. Hill was alone in his house at the time but managed to cross the street and ask the telephone operator to call the doctor, and then returned home. He was followed by neighbors, who saw his condition, but he expired almost immediately. Dr. F. N. Burgess, coroner, held an inquest and a verdict was rendered according to the above facts.”

Hill reportedly “was only sick about an hour.”

The newspaper said, “He was a faithful worker, an honest man, a good citizen, and was respected by all who knew him.”

Hill was 59 at the time of his death. He was buried in Folly Village Cemetery, in Colchester County, next to his daughter who had passed away 15 years earlier.

Most manganese is used in steelmaking because it makes steel stronger and more flexible. Manganese is also a key ingredient in the rechargeable batteries used in electric cars and electronics. It is considered a critical mineral for green technologies.

Steel is mainly iron and carbon, and the carbon is derived from metallurgical (steelmaking) coal. Nova Scotia got into steel production in the 1800s because it has vast coal deposits and the hope was that local iron would provide the second of the two key ingredients. Nova Scotia had many historical iron mines but the discovery of major iron deposits in Wabana, Newfoundland, in 1892 made most of Nova Scotia’s relatively small deposits uneconomical.

Many Nova Scotia coal mines have produced metallurgical coal and Cape Breton’s Donkin deposit is metallurgical-grade.

Steel is all around us, in electronics, cars, appliances, buildings and infrastructure, wind turbines, solar panels, and countless other things. The world produces about 1.8 billion tonnes of steel each year, so demand for metallurgical coal will remain high even as many places work to phase out coal’s use as fuel in electricity production.