Interview with Hughie Shorty MacDonald

Q. How many years did you work in the mine?

A. Ten years.

Q. What kind of work did you do?

A. Oh, different jobs from driving, carrying timber, loading coal, timbering and track laying.

Q. Could you explain what a bump is?

A. A bump is to my knowledge, is when there is a lot of coal taken out and the bottom heaves or the top comes down. It's generally when the bottom heaves, there's a big area with the coal taken out, there's nothing to keep the bottom from heaving and that's what causes a bump.

Q. What is the miners biggest fear concerning disasters?

A. Explosion is the biggest fear. I've been in a mine when there was a small flood came in. There wasn't too much to it. I've been in mines when there was fires, but there wasn't too much damage. I've been in a mine when there was an explosion and we had to be there when there was 24 to 44 feet of gas when we went down but it was all cleaned out, brushed out they call it. But there was about 2 ft. when it blew up and it blew stopping a 1000ft away. A stopping is a thing made of boards and brattish (a bag treated with cresole). That's put into prevent the air from going into an old working so you can get better air in the places where you're working. The cause of that explosion they figured was happening, you know, you had two wires and you put a piece of copper in between. The bell sounded to tell the fellow running the machine to put a box up or down, there was a spour come from those wires that ignited this gas that caused the explosion. There was one man who died the next day after that, another man wasn't well he died about a year later. One fellow, a red-head, his hair turned sort of purplish, another fellow wasn't well either but he died many years later. There was a few scorched, nothing to speak of. We went back to work the next night in the same mine, that's how little they thought of us at that time.

I remember I had an accident one time and it turned into be quite a joke. I was what is called running chain at the time. I was starting out with a trip boxing of a road. We had a pry under it and I was on the end of the pry. The pry slipped over and my thumb was caught. Two fellows came along and they were laughing they were so happy that I got hurt so they could get a drive right away. I was standing there like a trapped animal and they were talking about getting a ride up to the surface, they weren't thinking much of me. I couldn't straighten my thumb since that. It was all cut.

Q. What are some of the things that cause accidents in the mines?

A. Well, one of the things that I would say that causes accidents was especially people on contract, the more you got out the more money you make. You had so much coal to load and what they call a section of coal would be roughly 16 feet long, 6 feet in, 5 - 6 feet high. You had this block of coal and you loaded that you could go home. A lot of people use to rush. I had a friend that was rushing one night, never stopped to put up a timber to protect himself from the bad roof. This fall of stone came in and he got his leg broke. He had an awful time for years, they cut the leg off, then they had to cut another piece and another piece. I'd say at the end of it, it led up to the man's death. I'd say that was carelessness on his part, he should have timbered the place to make it secure safer for himself to work. Then there's a lot of little things like leaving things lying around. For example, if you were using some kind of a tool and when you're done with it just leaving it there where you were using it instead of putting it away in its proper place or if you cut a timber to put up and left the part you sawed off lying around in the long walls you had a pan system and it was very noisy once those pans started to go you put the coal down you wouldn't hear anything. That was kind of bad for the fellas loading there, they couldn't hear nothing and if there was a cracking or something while they were loading coal in what they call narrow works if anything started to crack you could hear it but there you couldn't hear a thing until the pan stopped again. When the trip would be loaded they would stop the pan. There was a lot of human error causing these accidents, in my opinion. There's a lot of carelessness involved in accidents, if everything was done right instead of rushing at things, there wouldn't be as many accidents. Here one time on the surface different things happened like boxes running away on account of not being coupled up. One time on the bank head there was no safety catch and they let this front box go… things like this.

Q. Can you relate any other stories or experiences you had or heard of concerning mine disasters?

A, Yeah, well there was one not long ago, you'd know about that in Glace Bay. There was a big explosion one time in New Waterford two or three of them up in Springhill. One time a fellow in New Waterford, there was belt lines running. One belt would go one way and one the opposite way on rollers with very little space in between. Now and again this use to get plodded up and you'd have to scrape out the dirt in there. The poor fellow was scraping that out and he had his glove on, the glove got caught and took him right in… well, he didn't know what happened. He was flattened right out. Before they could do anything about it the man was gone. In the Inverness mine, there was four men who got killed here in 1924. There was two brothers Dan C. MacIsaac and Archie A. MacIsaac, there was a MacDougall from the corner. I believe it was Dan MacDougall and Big Neil MacIsaac. They were more or less stripping a place. That is what you call it when a place is drove in and they take a big area. I know father worked in the place the night before and there were a lot of bumps, there was a loft of racket there. The place caved in with a bunch of men in that area. It took quite awhile to get them out. Apparently, the three MacIsaac were killed outright and MacDougall lived for a short while, a man by the name of Charlie Abraham got through to them and gave him a shot of brandy, he crawled through some little holes. Of course, the clergymen were there, they were right in the mine. It was an awful disaster; it was a rough day not only for their own people but for everybody in town. I was only a kid but I remember the funerals. There was one who came from MacIsaac Street, one over from Central Avenue, one from up Number 2, one up from the corner. I think everybody in town was there that day. Archie A's son and daughter, Alex Dan MacIsaac, Doucet's wife would be the daughter… Florence. His brother, Dan C., his family is away from here. In fact, he has one son a lawyer in Halifax. I don't know how many was in that family, he had two boys anyway. Then, Big Neil MacIsaac, he would be Barley MacIsaac's uncle. There was little Neil and Big Neil in the same family. Big Neil was married the second time. The second wife would be Angus Lee Kennedy's wife today.

Q. Were the mine owners concerned about safety?

A. Well I thing they got on safety a lot. My father was what they call a face boss. But they had an examination every now and then. They had to study up a lot on safety and they looked at different things in the mine to be sure they remained sage. We had some very good people who were safety conscious and they did their job to perfection. But then you'd have the one who was careless and this is how things happened. You had a man here one time, a man by the name of Neil S. MacLean. He had a cap in his pocket and it blew up. Before he died he had his two legs taken off.