Not Your Grandfathers Mining Industry, Nova Scotia, Canada

St. Ninian’s Cathedral

Mining built Nova Scotia!

Quarries in Antigonish County helped build St. Ninian’s Cathedral in Antigonish.

The MacAdam quarry, on the property of Alexander McDonald in Brierly Brook, provided limestone blocks for the cathedral’s walls.

A 1914 report said the limestone outcropped along a stream in a narrow ravine on the property. The report’s author said the stone withstood the weather well and did not show signs of significant deterioration. However, it had taken on a brownish-yellow colour as iron in the stone had oxidized (rusted).

The limestone was also exposed to the east on the McNeil farm. It outcropped on the side of a hill and a few holes had been dug to extract limestone for “lime-burning.” (Limestone is a soil sweetener, meaning it increases pH. It is crushed down to powder, calcined and spread on farm fields to improve soil quality.)

Sandstone for St. Ninian’s Cathedral was provided by a quarry in North Grant which was opened by the Grant family in the 1860s. Its stone was used for the quoining (blocks at the corners of walls) and other trim elements.

The quarry later fell into disuse but was eventually opened again in 1936 by Wilfred Arsenault. The quarry was overgrown with shrubbery at that time, but it has been used ever since by Arsenault Monuments.

In 1937, the North Grant quarry again contributed to St. Ninian’s when its stone was used in the cathedral’s vestry. St. Ninian’s altar table was also quarried and made by the Arsenaults. It took an entire day to lift the altar table out of the quarry. The solid piece of stone was plucked by a derrick manned by two labourers and was polished by hand.

In 1938, the North Grant quarry also provided the stone for Gilmora Hall at St. Francis Xavier University, across the street from St. Ninian’s.

According to "More Stately Mansions" by Elizabeth Pacey, Bishop Colin F. MacKinnon suggested the idea of a new stone cathedral to his parishioners to replace the wooden church on Main Street that then existed. They committed to raising 900 pounds per year and volunteering three days of labour each week, except during harvest season. The first sod was turned by the Bishop on October 22, 1866.

Shortly after Christmas that year, the parishioners started hauling stone by horse and wagon to the construction site. Blocks of four to eight hundred pounds each were not unusual, and some blocks weighed as much as two tons.

A shipwreck at Morristown, in Antigonish Harbour, also helped. Its cargo of lumber was purchased at a bargain price and transported to the construction site across the ice on sleighs.

To lay the cathedral’s foundation, trenches were dug around the perimeter and foundation walls, 43 inches thick, were built. There was no basement beneath the main body of the church, which was supported on square stone posts about 40 inches wide and 80 inches deep. Massive hand-hewn beams were then placed on top of the supporting posts and the floorboards were laid on top of the beams.

St. Ninian’s was officially opened on September 13, 1874. At the time it was completed, St. Ninian’s was the largest stone building east of Montreal, according to the Xaverian Weekly.

Our thanks to the Antigonish Heritage Museum for their assistance with research. Nova Scotia has many excellent local museums and historical societies that help keep our stories alive. Many of them are focussed on the province’s geology and mining history and are great sources of information.