Springhill’s John Anderson

Springhill may owe its existence to John Anderson more than anyone else. At least that’s what the Halifax Herald wrote in 1902, because Anderson discovered the coal seams that caused Springhill to grow from a tiny village to a thriving mining town.

John Anderson was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, around 1818. At a young age, he started working in a Scottish coal mine at which his father was the underground manager. He studied geology and was “Naturally studious,” according to the Halifax Herald’s August 28, 1902, edition.

His opportunities were limited in Scotland, so he immigrated to Nova Scotia in 1852, planning to work at Albion Mines (Stellarton’s original name), where the General Mining Association (GMA) operated a number of coal mines. However, he could only find work as a labourer, so he travelled on foot to the Albert coal mines in New Brunswick where he worked for a while. He later travelled to Grand Lake, NB, where he ran his own mine and shipped the coal by wooden boats to Saint John.

He returned to Nova Scotia in 1865 and explored for coal in the Joggins and River Hebert districts.

In 1868, Anderson was hired by investors to explore the Springhill coalfield. It had been known for decades that coal existed in the area - coal mining started in Springhill as early as 1834 when a local man sold coal to blacksmiths. Some small-scale mining took place starting in the late 1850s after the GMA lost its 30-year monopoly on most Nova Scotia minerals and independent operators were allowed to open mines.

However, those companies “were all baffled in finding upon them workable seams of coal,” as the Herald put it in 1902. “Mr. Anderson’s task was to find coal where others had failed. Mr. Anderson laboured for three or four years under difficulties for want of equipment and supplies, but was successful in tracing valuable seams of coal and laying the foundation for the great coal mining enterprise now carried on by the Cumberland Railway and Coal Company.”

Anderson’s discoveries first led to the formation of the Springhill Mining Company in 1872, and “About a dozen coal cutters were employed that season….” A branch railway was built to connect Springhill to the Intercolonial Railway and, with this important improvement in transportation, the town’s mines were opened on a larger scale.

Springhill transitioned from a village of “rude shacks in which the first rush of settlers contrived to live and do their business” to a thriving town that would have an extraordinary history of coal mining over the next century.

The Herald wrote, “Springhill today [in 1902] is an object lesson upon the enormous hidden wealth of the province and what is due to the early explorers and promoters of these great coal works.”

Anderson was briefly manager of the mines until he retired in 1873, according to the Herald, “primarily owing to ill health, and was afterwards appointed post-master….”

The newspaper said Anderson was “probably deserving of more credit than any other man for bringing about the development of the Springhill mines.” It described him as “A man of rare intelligence and individuality….”

Anderson, who had asthma with which “he has been afflicted more or less all his life,” passed away on August 31, 1903, at the age of 85 “after much patient suffering,” according to the Evening Mail’s September 5 edition.

Today, “the enormous hidden wealth of the province” is still an essential part of Nova Scotia’s economy. Nova Scotia’s mining and quarrying industry employs over 3000 Nova Scotians, mostly in rural areas, and its average total compensation (wages and benefits) is $102,000 per year.

John Anderson sketch that accompanied the Halifax Herald’s 1902 article.

Springhill town and mine head in 1931. Thanks to the Nova Scotia Archives.