The provincial archives provides this chronology of early colonial coal use in Cape Breton:
1672 Coal deposits identified by Nicholas Denys in his travels through Ile Royale (Cape Breton Island),
1720 Coal mining begins at Cow Bay (Port Morien) Cape Breton, developed on a small scale by the French for local use at Louisbourg; this was the first mining of coal by regular extraction methods in what is now Canada, and the first commercial coal-mining venture in Canada.
1724 Coal exported from Cape Breton to Boston, Massachusetts.
1766 First extraction of coal from exposed seams in cliffs at Sydney Mines, Cape Breton.
The same chronology mentions the River Inhabitants coal industry:
1868 Richmond Colliery opens at Port Malcolm, Richmond County (small colliery; closed 1908).
1922 Basin Colliery opens at Morash Point, Richmond County (small colliery; closed 1923).
1928 Tidewater Colliery opens at Whiteside, River Inhabitants Basin, Richmond County (small colliery; operated one year only).
Another minesite of 1865 was constructed three miles inland on Little River but apparently never operated.
There are reports for the provincial Department of Mines as early as 1906 commenting on the feasibility of mining coal in the Lower River Inhabitants Basin and specifically in Whiteside. This is a link to "Coal Prospects in Whiteside District, Richmond County," Department of Mines Memorandum #430507, dated 1958, which consists in 12 facsimile pages including the 1906 report.
www.novascotia.ca/natr/meb/data/ar/11f/AR_ME_11F11A_10-O-18_00_430507.pdf
The following description of coal mining in River Inhabitants was published by C.M. Odell in 1922:
1672 Coal deposits identified by Nicholas Denys in his travels through Ile Royale (Cape Breton Island),
1720 Coal mining begins at Cow Bay (Port Morien) Cape Breton, developed on a small scale by the French for local use at Louisbourg; this was the first mining of coal by regular extraction methods in what is now Canada, and the first commercial coal-mining venture in Canada.
1724 Coal exported from Cape Breton to Boston, Massachusetts.
1766 First extraction of coal from exposed seams in cliffs at Sydney Mines, Cape Breton.
The same chronology mentions the River Inhabitants coal industry:
1868 Richmond Colliery opens at Port Malcolm, Richmond County (small colliery; closed 1908).
1922 Basin Colliery opens at Morash Point, Richmond County (small colliery; closed 1923).
1928 Tidewater Colliery opens at Whiteside, River Inhabitants Basin, Richmond County (small colliery; operated one year only).
Another minesite of 1865 was constructed three miles inland on Little River but apparently never operated.
There are reports for the provincial Department of Mines as early as 1906 commenting on the feasibility of mining coal in the Lower River Inhabitants Basin and specifically in Whiteside. This is a link to "Coal Prospects in Whiteside District, Richmond County," Department of Mines Memorandum #430507, dated 1958, which consists in 12 facsimile pages including the 1906 report.
www.novascotia.ca/natr/meb/data/ar/11f/AR_ME_11F11A_10-O-18_00_430507.pdf
The following description of coal mining in River Inhabitants was published by C.M. Odell in 1922:
p. 19f......In Richmond county, Sea Coal mine at River Inhabitants Basin, and a seam at Little river some three miles inland, were opened up at considerable cost. The former has been worked spasmodically for the past thirty years and is to-day being exploited. The latter was opened in 1865 by a shaft some sixty feet in depth, which was connected with tide water by a railway three miles in length. For some reason this shaft was never used, and the company was still-born. On one occasion the Springhill Company, of Cumberland county, became obsessed with the idea of opening a coal mine in Cape Breton. Here was a mine all ready and very much for sale. [there follows an anecdote how the sale was not concluded]
C. M. ODELL.
"MEN AND METHODS OF THE EARLY DAYS OF MINING IN CAPE BRETON"
TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE OF MINING AND METALLURGY, PART OF VOL. XXV, 1922.(28 pages)
Annual Meeting, Mining Society of Nova Scotia, Sydney, May, 1922
the full article is available at www.mininghistory.ns.ca/cim/c1922001.htm
The 1993 provincial handbook on coal in Nova Scotia claims there were three coal mine ventures in the Whiteside area:
"In the Richmond Basin [sic] of Cape Breton, the Tidewater Fuel and Navigation Company operated a mine in Whiteside in 1928, one of three short-lived ventures there"
J.H. Calder et al. One of the Greatest Treasures: The Geology and History of Coal in Great Breton (Nova Scotia Department of Natural
Resources) 1993, p.27
"In the Richmond Basin [sic] of Cape Breton, the Tidewater Fuel and Navigation Company operated a mine in Whiteside in 1928, one of three short-lived ventures there"
J.H. Calder et al. One of the Greatest Treasures: The Geology and History of Coal in Great Breton (Nova Scotia Department of Natural
Resources) 1993, p.27
