TRANSCRIPT

So you know the story about the mine got started don't you? Do you want to tell us that one as well?

Peter Murray was a farmer and the dug well that he had was not producing enough water for him to water his cattle. So he decided to hire a gentleman down the highway, I never knew his name, but was capable of boring a well. And the gentleman came, he just lived down the road about a mile, and he came up to Peter Murray's farm here where the mine was and he drilled, started drilling. Well after he struck water Peter Murray's hired hand, more or less, was Herb Wilson, a young fella. And the next day; this was in the winter time; and the next day when young Herb came up the road to go to work (he was about 14 years old Herb told me at the time), he noticed that the snow had melted all over the place away from the water where they had drilled, more than usual. Well he thought he'd just, that's a new well I must have a little drink of water, and he took a swig of this stuff and it was 100% brine. They had drilled right into the salt. He said he blew it all over the field too!

Melted some snow then I bet you!

And Peter Murray didn't do anything with it; he didn't know what to do. It was a dead well to him a terrible thing to happen really.

Yes.

He found out that his pork that he had, if he took water and put his pork in it in a barrel it was perfect, pickling. Right for pickling, right out of the ground. I remember one story he had taken a half a pig or something over to Tatamagouche to sell. A lot of the farmers did that, they raised so many pigs and they'd sell some to pay for the ones that they had, the ones they kept for themselves. And he offered it to I think it was Bill Langille, the fella who ran the meat market in Tatamagouche. And they asked Peter how did you get the pig so perfectly salted, so even. He said "Oh just the water out of my well". And the story got around after a while that he was telling the truth, you see. And MacKay and Chambers, two gentlemen from New Glasgow; one was an engineer and the other was an industrial type person. They heard about it and they came to Malagash to see what this was all about. And they were the founders of the salt mine. So they were the ones that sank the first shaft.

Yes.

So was that 1918 or 1919?

Er? 1918 they sunk the first shaft, from then it would be the next 1919, no wait a minute 1918 that's right. The first lump of salt came up on Labour Day, 1918.

So how deep did they go down, do you know how deep they went?

About 80 feet the first shaft.