Coat of Arms of
New Waterford "Conari Praestet"-"It is Better To Try"
The
village of
Lingan
(its name is a corruption of the French word "l'indienne")
is one of the area's earliest settlements. In the early
1700's, French explorers from the Fortress of Louisbourg
settled there and extracted coal from cliff side seams at
the ocean's edge. Large scale mining operations at
Lingan started in 1852; however, the first tangible signs
of community life did not appear until the period 1907-1911
with the opening of four collieries at New Waterford.
Over the years a total of 11 mines were in
production. Today there is only the Cape Breton
Development Corporation's Phalen Colliery.
The
coal mining centre on the Atlantic Ocean at the southern
edge of Sydney Harbor was incorporated in 1913, just six
years after largescale coal mining began in the area.
The settlement was orignally called
Barrachois
with but a handful of homes there in 1874. The first
coal mine in the area opened in 1867, but closed seven
years later. It wasn't until Dominion Coal Company
began mining operations in 1907 that the settlement
blossomed. The company opened four pits: Nos. 12, 14,
15 and 16 - in quick succession and a booming "workers
camp" soon developed.
The
name "New Waterford" was chosen by some of the Irish-born
settlers in honor of the Irish seaport Waterford from where
many of the pioneers had come. And Sept. 8, 1913, New
Waterford became the 40th incorporated town in North
America and the sixth in Cape Breton County. Schools
and churches soon followed. St. Agnes in 1913 and
Central in 1913, joined Mount Carmel School, built in
1912. Mount Carmel and St. Agnes parishes served the
mostly Roman Catholic residents. New Waterford's
Calvin United Church was one of the first in all of Canada
having united the Methodist and Presbyterian congregations
in 1918, seven years prior to national church union in
1925.
The
town quickly settled into the routine of a busy coal-mining
community with the sharp whistle of the collieries
announcing shift changes at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. or sounding
the alarm when an accident occurred. The morning of
July 25, 1917, the mine whistle at No. 12 blew at 7:30 a.m.
An explosion had rocked the pit, 2,000 feet below the
surface. Twenty-five men were later rescued, but 65 had
perished in the blast. A miners' memorial on Baker
Street lists the names of those who were killed in the
explosion. It also tells the story of the infamous strike
of 1925.
Three
months into the strike, with emotions running high, a group
of miners marched on the Waterford Lake Power Plant which
controlled the supply of water to the town. In the ensuing
melee with company police, one miner - Wiliam Davis - was
shot and killed. The day of his death, June 11, is now
honored as Miners' Memorial Day and the coal mines of Cape
Breton are idle in memory of all miners who have
died.
The
advent of oil as heating fuel in the 1950s and '60s spelled
the end of New Waterford coal mines reaching many miles
under the sea. No. 16, one of the biggest and best
mines in Canada, shut down in 1963. No. 12 closed in
1973 after a fire claimed two lives. No. 14 had
closed in 1932 and No. 5 shut down in 1925.
Today,
there are no working coal mines in town. The Nova Scotia
Power Corporation's coal-fired Lingan Generating Station is
located near the old Phalen mine site.
