The Mysterious Van Slooten

He was called “The Mysterious Van Slooten” in New York but he was well known in Nova Scotia due to his mining work here. This is the remarkable story of William Van Slooten:

Van Slooten was born in New Orleans in 1858 and got a mining engineering degree from the University of Virginia at just 19 years of age, reportedly making him the university’s youngest graduate. He also studied law, but ended up moving to Brooklyn, New York, in 1881 where he pursued a career mainly in mining.

Van Slooten moved to Sydney, Cape Breton, around the mid 1880s, where he managed the Coxheath copper mine from at least 1884-86. Coxheath is an example of the many historical Nova Scotian mines that extracted what are now called “critical minerals” – minerals needed for things like electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels. Those early mines proved that we have the geology for critical minerals and that Nova Scotia can contribute to global supply of these essential materials today.

In 1885, he submitted a high-profile proposal to the provincial government seeking a 10-year monopoly on most of the province’s iron deposits, and large tax breaks for his company. In exchange, he would bring $1 million in foreign investment to the province to develop its iron sector.

At that time, iron mining was booming at Londonderry, Colchester County, but the province’s potential for iron was otherwise largely going untapped. The Department of Mines’ annual reports in 1885 and 1886 referred to iron as “our most important resource,” but lamented that iron “has not as yet received attention at all commensurate with its value.”

Given this, Van Slooten’s proposal held some appeal, particularly the promise to create an estimated 1500 jobs with a total monthly payroll of $50,000.

A growing iron sector would also create new demand for Cape Breton coal. Steel is mainly iron and carbon, and the carbon is derived from metallurgical (steelmaking) coal. Nova Scotia got into steel production in the 1870s because it has vast coal deposits and the hope was that local iron would provide the second of the two key ingredients. New investment in the iron sector would lead to more steel production and more demand for Cape Breton’s metallurgical coal.

Cape Breton’s municipal council endorsed Van Slooten’s proposal and agreed to waive the company’s property taxes for 25 years.

However, others opposed the idea. For example, the April 14, 1887, edition of the Halifax Herald contained an article sarcastically headlined “The Van Slooten Monopoly – A Mythical Company that would like the whole earth, but will be satisfied with a Monopoly of Nova Scotia.” The article pointed out that other companies already held the mineral rights to various iron deposits and it would be unfair to overturn their rights for Van Slooten’s benefit: “All the mining men agreed that the Van Slooten scheme, if adopted, would ruin the enterprises in which they were interested.”

The provincial government rejected the proposal.

To sweeten the offer, Van Slooten founded the Cape Breton and Pictou Iron Company (later renamed the Cape Breton and Pictou Iron and Railway Company). The company’s prospectus promised to build a railway “from Sydney to the headwater of East Bay, a distance of about thirteen miles, with a branch line about five miles in length to connect with the iron deposit before mentioned…To build and equip this railway will cost the sum of $270,000 at the lowest calculation.”

The company also promised to spend about $700,000 “in opening up and developing the mines, erecting and constructing blast furnaces, rolling mills and buildings, providing machinery and all the necessary appliances for the manufacture of iron and steel, to say nothing of providing working capital, which must amount to at least $300,000.”

The prospectus included a letter from Cape Breton coal mine managers endorsing the proposal. They concluded their letter, which was addressed to the provincial government’s cabinet and members of the legislature, saying, “we beg leave to state that we have examined and investigated the credentials of Wm. VanSlooten and believe that he is the right man to carry such a work to a successful issue, which is in itself a good thing, and is something that can be said of but few promoters of companies in the Province.”

The coal mine managers said the project would require at least 150,000 tons of coal per year for smelting iron.

Despite Van Slooten’s best efforts, the proposal was never approved.

However, he became sufficiently high profile in the province that for years to come, newspaper articles described him as being well known here. An 1896 article in Halifax’s Evening Mail about his gold exploration in Ecuador was even headlined, “An Old Acquaintance Again Heard From.”

Van Slooten was also involved in a proposal to build a dock in Saint John, New Brunswick, that did not pan out. He pursued opportunities in lotteries in Quebec and was the promoter of a meat export scheme there that also came to nothing.

In 1893, he was again living in Brooklyn and was nominated as the Democratic candidate for state senate in a surprise move by the head of the party’s political machine in the district, James Kane. According to the New York Times, “Kane astonished the delegates by nominating William Van Slooten for Senator. No one at the convention had ever heard of Van Slooten and when he was placed in nomination a hundred voices cried: ‘Who is Van Slooten?’”

The New York Sun later wrote, “The nomination was probably the most unexpected ever made by either party in Brooklyn.”

One of the Democratic Party luminaries who endorsed Van Slooten at the convention “as a patriot and citizen of renown was forced to stop and ask one of the men on the platform the name of the man he was eulogizing so warmly,” according to the Brooklyn Eagle.

The Fifth District was considered a safe one for the Democrats, which was likely why Van Slooten did not make any effort to campaign. His opponent, “Honest Dan” Bradley, used “Who is Van Slooten?” as his campaign slogan, borrowing the line from the Democrats themselves.

According to the New York Times, “Before the campaign had progressed far the Democratic candidate became known as ‘The Mysterious Van Slooten’ from the fact that he never once appeared as a speaker or otherwise publicly from the time he was nominated until election day. Bradly was elected and Van Slooten was never again heard of in local politics.”

Van Slooten continued his mining and business career, but it apparently led to his death in 1901, when, at the age of 44, he committed suicide. He had travelled to South America two months earlier to assess a potential gold mine and had caught a fever, which the New York Times said caused “temporary derangement of the mind.”

The illness confined him to his home after he returned from South America. On December 14, he was in his sitting room with his wife and his doctor, Lawrence J. Morton, when the tragedy occurred.

According to the Times, “Dr. Morton was busy preparing medicine for his patient, and while Mrs. Van Slooten’s attention was directed elsewhere for a moment, the sick man suddenly jumped up and, running to a cabinet in the room, secured the pistol. Before any attempt could be made to prevent him carrying out his purpose, Mr. Van Slooten had placed the muzzle of the weapon to his head, over the right ear, and fired. He fell to the floor dead. Mrs. Van Slooten became hysterical, and last night it was said at the house that she was prostrated.”

It was a large-calibre Mauser magazine pistol, a German gun he had bought in South America. Mausers had a complicated design which automatically ejected spent shells and loaded fresh bullets into the chamber.

Mauser pistols were not well known in the United States, so police investigating Van Slooten’s death were unsure how to handle the weapon safely, or even how to get the bullets out of it. They took it to a gunsmith who, “after some tinkering,” figured out how to remove the seven bullets he found in it, according to the New York Tribune.

The pistol was taken back to the Adams Street police station where officers, fascinated by the unfamiliar weapon, examined it and playfully pretended to shoot each other with it, pulling the trigger while pointing it at colleagues.

As one of them was putting the gun in a drawer, he pulled the trigger and “There was a loud report, and a cloud of paper was thrown up from the big record book, which had been pierced by the bullet,” wrote the New York Tribune. The article said the bullet went through 600 pages, but other articles suggested it was more like 150-250.

The police took the pistol back to the gunsmith who had previously examined it, but he refused to touch it.

While a number of his projects did not pan out, newspaper reports after his death suggested Van Slooten was relatively wealthy.

The Brooklyn Daily News wrote, “Mr. Van Slooten was not a success in politics, but he was a competent engineer and a good citizen, and his suicide in a moment of delirium will be generally regretted.”

The Coxheath copper mine.

Inside the Coxheath mine's mill.