Robert Boutilier’s Luck

It was only thanks to luck that Robert Boutilier did not die in Pictou County’s deadliest coal mine disaster in 1918, but sadly, his luck ran out not long after.

Boutilier was from Antigonish but moved to Stellarton at the age of 18 in late 1917 or early 1918.

He boarded at the Rideouts’, according to the Evening Mail’s March 5, 1918, edition, and started working in the Allan coal mine (aka Allan Shaft) shortly before the January 23, 1918, explosion that killed 88 men.

Ninety-seven men were in the mine at the time of the explosion. Nine, who were lucky enough to be working near the 476-foot level, made it to the cage (elevator), signalled its operator and were lifted to safety. There were no other survivors.

Boutilier was supposed to be underground at the time of the explosion but had arrived five minutes late for the last cage-ride into the mine. His tardiness likely saved his life.

However, on March 2, a month and a half later, Boutilier was killed crossing the street when he was struck by a tram car operated by the Pictou County Electric Company. The tram was slowing to pick up passengers when Boutilier stepped across the track about three or four feet in front of the tram. He must have misjudged the distance and/or the tram’s speed, because he was struck by its fender and killed.

Several other men died in the Allan Shaft explosion, or survived it, apparently as a result of luck, or the randomness of life.

James D. Ross of Church Street in Westville, was supposed to work the shift during which the disaster occurred. The January 29 edition of the Evening Mail described him as a “born horseman” and said, “He was driving around New Glasgow on Wednesday afternoon. A horse dropped into a cellar-way, and Ross joined the other men in extricating the animal. His own horse cast a shoe [the shoe fell off], which he got replaced. As a result he was too late for work, and he was annoyed about it, too, for he had not been able to get word to his ‘butty’ that he would not be out. Ross is living to-day, because of those happenings.”

Fred McKenzie was not so lucky. The same newspaper said McKenzie, “who usually shod the horses on Tuesday, last week put it off until Wednesday evening. Had he followed his usual practice he would still be living.”

According to the January 25 edition of the Evening Mail, “One of the dead is a former French soldier who had responded to his country’s call at the opening of the war, saw fighting, was wounded and invalided home. Back he came to his old work and he had been at it for only three weeks when death, which had failed to get him in the firing line, secured its victim in the depths of a coal mine.”

Another example: “Sam Sample, a boy of eighteen, was in the mine working his very first shift. He was the son of a miner, his father employed in the McGregor pit, and tonight the dead body of the boy is 1200 feet down in the mine and his father mourns.”

Historical accidents like the Allan Shaft disaster are a key reason why the modern mining industry is so safety-focussed. Nova Scotia’s mining and quarrying industry has reduced its injury rate by 90% since 1997.

Today, the Allan Mine is the site of Sobeys’ headquarters, an example of how former mines and quarries go on to serve communities other ways after extraction is done.

The Allan Mine.

Sobeys' headquarters, on the site of the reclaimed Allan Mine.