Not Your Grandfathers Mining Industry, Nova Scotia, Canada

The Guilty Grenos

In 1893, gold miners Alexander and John Greno were charged with stealing from a gold mine in Oldham, Halifax County. They were caught because the way gold was processed in that era left a literal trail that led the authorities to them.

The Greno brothers were accused of stealing gold and plates (parts of a stamp mill) from the Hardman and Taylor mine.

Stamp mills were large machines that crushed gold-bearing rock, the first step in the process of separating gold from the quartz in which it is usually found. Mills commonly had banks of five stamps with the largest operations having ten banks or fifty stamps. The crashing of the stamps dropping on the ore could be heard for miles around.

In a stamp mill, quartz was washed with water and moved under the stamps that went up and down, crushing the quartz into sand. Each stamp would weigh about 800 to 1,000 pounds.

In the 1800s, mercury was then used to separate the gold from the sand, but mercury hasn’t been used in Nova Scotia since the early 1900s because it is bad for the environment.

There are two main reasons mercury was used back then – it worked and people didn’t understand the harm it did to the environment.

Gold dissolves in mercury but mercury does not absorb other impurities, so it was effective at separating the gold. The mercury/gold mixture was recollected and heated until the mercury boiled away. A simple still like those used to make alcohol would draw away the vaporized mercury, collecting it for reuse, leaving mostly pure gold. The gold was then refined for greater purity and formed into bricks or nuggets.

The Grenos were caught because the gold/sand mixture was in buckets – the quartz had been crushed but the gold had not yet been separated with mercury. The two men carried off the buckets but, as the Halifax Herald described it, “The buckets of sand being heavy the thieves were obliged to put them on the ground at times to rest. In this way the robbers were tracked as some of the sand was left on the ground.”

An August 5 article offered more details about how the arrest unfolded: “The plates were found some distance from the mill, hidden in the bushes. They were left undisturbed and watchers were set for the robbers. After watching all the week the men were rewarded early Thursday morning by seeing two colored men, John and Alex. Greno, go to where the plates and gold were hid, and remove the leaves. The men were arrested and jailed at Oldham last night and brought to the city this morning. All the gold and plates were recovered with the exception of about $150 worth.”

(The August 7 edition of the newspaper corrected this description of the Grenos, saying, “The accused are not colored as stated.”)

The total value stolen was estimated to be about $700. The Grenos’ bail was set at $800.

The trial began on August 14 with a witness “who was a confederate of the other two,” according to the Herald. “From his testimony he seems to have been the arch conspirator. On the stand today the witness recounted the visit to the mill, described how the Grenos got in a window and said they concealed the plates and other plunder in the woods.”

The witness, not named in the article, had agreed to provide “queen’s evidence,” apparently to avoid being charged himself since media coverage did not mention a third person being charged.

The Greno brothers both testified and swore they were innocent. Robert Malcolm and Evan Thompson testified that the Grenos had “excellent characters.”

However, the weight of the evidence - and the buckets - was too great. The Grenos were found guilty.

While not much is known about them, historical Department of Mines records tell us that the Grenos (spelled “Greenough”) again mined gold in Oldham from 1910-14. They produced 852 ounces of gold in those years, which would be worth several million dollars today.

Misconceptions about modern gold mining stem from historical mining practices, like the use of mercury, that we agree were not good enough. However, historical sites like these have nothing to do with modern mining, which is a sophisticated, science-based activity that takes excellent care of the environment. You can learn more about the differences between modern and historical gold mining at https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/modern-gold-mining