Interview with Dan Neil MacDonald (Terra Nova) by phone Oct 3/20/updated Feb 1/21
Dan Neil: First of all, I want to tell you how great a job you are doing.
Jeanette: Great (glad for the positive feedback).
Dan Neil: I’ve been following it, reading it all along. Doing it at this time, I know it is a little late but it’s not too late.
Jeanette: Yeah, it’s a little late. Sometimes when I’m talking to people, they say, “oh, if you would have done this twenty years ago even or thirty years ago. “
Dan Neil: You are getting most of it (now), anyway.
Jeanette: Yeah, I’m surprised at how much information I was able to get. I haven’t even been to the Archives yet.
Dan Neil: I’m surprised too, and I’m surprised at all the pictures you have.
Jeanette: To get those pictures, that was amazing really. A gentleman read the story in the paper and he called me. He was from West Mabou and he said he knew this guy who worked in the mine. When the man passed away - he had been living in a trailer. He went in there; the door was open and on the floor was a bunch of pictures and they were of Stirling. So, he kept them, and he sent them to me (Editors note – There were 29 pictures in this collection. There are approximately 100 on the photo page).
Jeanette: They are scarce though. There’s a lot of pictures that went by the wayside. All those pictures Dan Alex had; he had tons of pictures of up on the hill and buildings. They are all gone. Nobody knows where they are at if they are anywhere.
The houses/other buildings
Dan Neil: My mother. Margaret M. MacDonald had pictures, I imagine of every house that was moved by here (Terra Nova) by Dan Alex (MacLeod) and LeDrew. Our house burnt in 1975 and we lost them all.
Jeanette: Oh, heavens!! Would your mother have said, or would you know (whether or not) the houses went over the mountain?
Dan Neil: It was one of the only ways you could take them. You couldn’t go across the Salmon River bridge at Huntington’s. However, they did take houses down a steep bank, drive through the water to the other side and they would need help to get up the steep bank on the other side. Once on the other side they would be in Harry Huntington's field and would have to make their way back to the road. You couldn’t go across Victoria Bridge, Marion Bridge, Kenny Y's Bridge, Lawrence Morrison's Bridge or Fuller's Bridge. That was six of the bridges you couldn’t go across. They were mostly narrow, high sided steel bridges. The only way you could go was to come up the eight-mile stretch (through Loch Lomond) down the mountain to Route 4. The only narrow bridge in that vicinity was the one right in front of our house. There was a steel bridge there the same as the one on the Trout Brook road. Well, the brook crossing was level here and Dan Alex had a road through the brook, so he used to just by-pass the bridge when he got here.
Jeanette: Oh, that was so smart of him.
Dan Neil: Dan Alex lived here for five years. In the 40’s. He had the mill there and the camp and all the men lived here. He was familiar with the area.
Jeanette: On your property?
Dan Neil: Yes
Jeanette: Ah, that’s interesting. Yes, that was my understanding that the houses went from Stirling and went down the mountain.
Dan Neil: They’d go down that steep mountain with a truck that only had mechanical brakes on it.
Jeanette: Someone (Nelson MacAskill) was wondering if there was something that would hold it back.
Dan Neil: I asked him (Dan Alex MacLeod) about that. He told me that they had a dozer. They’d drive the dozer behind, and the dozer would act like a big anchor behind.
Jeanette: Oh yes, like it was holding it (the house) back.
Jeanette: So that solves that mystery. So, how many houses (went by), did your mother ever say or would you remember?
Dan Neil: Yes, I remember them. I was very young but one memory I have – see a lot of times, they used to spend the night here. I guess they’d load the house on in Stirling in the morning and they’d get this far by the evening, because it was probably late by the time they left there, you know. They’d spend the night in the house they were towing. As soon as they crossed to the other side of the brook, they’d camp for the night.
Jeanette: Oh, that’s interesting. Why do you think they would do that- was that halfway?
Dan Neil. I would think they wouldn’t want to go down the mountain late in the day. They probably wanted to start the end of their tour early in the morning, in count of traffic I would think.
Jeanette: And the (50s) mine closed in May (1956) so a lot of these houses may have been moved in the fall…
Dan Neil: Oh yes, and several years later too. You know some of those houses were down in Stirling several years before they were moved.
Jeanette: Well, Angus Alex’s (MacLeod) was. He said it was there a few years.
Dan Neil: I can remember them. I was born in 55 so, it’s probably 58 and 59 that I kind of remember them.
Dan Neil: I remember going into one of the houses, however old I was – nosey, looking around. I opened the cellar door and didn’t I fall down to the ground. There was nothing there- just a space. That’s where the cellar stairs would have been. I’m lucky I wasn’t killed; that I didn’t hit one of the beams.
Jeanette: Do you remember anything else about the houses?
Dan Neil: Well, (I saw) those two big houses that are down at the Meadows, the Manager’s house and the other going by.
Jeanette: Oh.
Dan Neil: There are two down there, at the Meadows, that came from Stirling.
Jeanette: I didn’t know that. I knew there was one.
Dan Neil: That one you can see, off Route 4, but there’s one behind that one that is bigger than that one.
Jeanette: Oh, really. So, you go up the Meadows road, then?
Dan Neil: You go up the Meadows Road and the first little street to the left, called Gairlock; you drive in Gairlock Drive. It’s on the left; it’s bigger than that one on Route 4.
Dan Neil: First of all, I want to tell you how great a job you are doing.
Jeanette: Great (glad for the positive feedback).
Dan Neil: I’ve been following it, reading it all along. Doing it at this time, I know it is a little late but it’s not too late.
Jeanette: Yeah, it’s a little late. Sometimes when I’m talking to people, they say, “oh, if you would have done this twenty years ago even or thirty years ago. “
Dan Neil: You are getting most of it (now), anyway.
Jeanette: Yeah, I’m surprised at how much information I was able to get. I haven’t even been to the Archives yet.
Dan Neil: I’m surprised too, and I’m surprised at all the pictures you have.
Jeanette: To get those pictures, that was amazing really. A gentleman read the story in the paper and he called me. He was from West Mabou and he said he knew this guy who worked in the mine. When the man passed away - he had been living in a trailer. He went in there; the door was open and on the floor was a bunch of pictures and they were of Stirling. So, he kept them, and he sent them to me (Editors note – There were 29 pictures in this collection. There are approximately 100 on the photo page).
Jeanette: They are scarce though. There’s a lot of pictures that went by the wayside. All those pictures Dan Alex had; he had tons of pictures of up on the hill and buildings. They are all gone. Nobody knows where they are at if they are anywhere.
The houses/other buildings
Dan Neil: My mother. Margaret M. MacDonald had pictures, I imagine of every house that was moved by here (Terra Nova) by Dan Alex (MacLeod) and LeDrew. Our house burnt in 1975 and we lost them all.
Jeanette: Oh, heavens!! Would your mother have said, or would you know (whether or not) the houses went over the mountain?
Dan Neil: It was one of the only ways you could take them. You couldn’t go across the Salmon River bridge at Huntington’s. However, they did take houses down a steep bank, drive through the water to the other side and they would need help to get up the steep bank on the other side. Once on the other side they would be in Harry Huntington's field and would have to make their way back to the road. You couldn’t go across Victoria Bridge, Marion Bridge, Kenny Y's Bridge, Lawrence Morrison's Bridge or Fuller's Bridge. That was six of the bridges you couldn’t go across. They were mostly narrow, high sided steel bridges. The only way you could go was to come up the eight-mile stretch (through Loch Lomond) down the mountain to Route 4. The only narrow bridge in that vicinity was the one right in front of our house. There was a steel bridge there the same as the one on the Trout Brook road. Well, the brook crossing was level here and Dan Alex had a road through the brook, so he used to just by-pass the bridge when he got here.
Jeanette: Oh, that was so smart of him.
Dan Neil: Dan Alex lived here for five years. In the 40’s. He had the mill there and the camp and all the men lived here. He was familiar with the area.
Jeanette: On your property?
Dan Neil: Yes
Jeanette: Ah, that’s interesting. Yes, that was my understanding that the houses went from Stirling and went down the mountain.
Dan Neil: They’d go down that steep mountain with a truck that only had mechanical brakes on it.
Jeanette: Someone (Nelson MacAskill) was wondering if there was something that would hold it back.
Dan Neil: I asked him (Dan Alex MacLeod) about that. He told me that they had a dozer. They’d drive the dozer behind, and the dozer would act like a big anchor behind.
Jeanette: Oh yes, like it was holding it (the house) back.
Jeanette: So that solves that mystery. So, how many houses (went by), did your mother ever say or would you remember?
Dan Neil: Yes, I remember them. I was very young but one memory I have – see a lot of times, they used to spend the night here. I guess they’d load the house on in Stirling in the morning and they’d get this far by the evening, because it was probably late by the time they left there, you know. They’d spend the night in the house they were towing. As soon as they crossed to the other side of the brook, they’d camp for the night.
Jeanette: Oh, that’s interesting. Why do you think they would do that- was that halfway?
Dan Neil. I would think they wouldn’t want to go down the mountain late in the day. They probably wanted to start the end of their tour early in the morning, in count of traffic I would think.
Jeanette: And the (50s) mine closed in May (1956) so a lot of these houses may have been moved in the fall…
Dan Neil: Oh yes, and several years later too. You know some of those houses were down in Stirling several years before they were moved.
Jeanette: Well, Angus Alex’s (MacLeod) was. He said it was there a few years.
Dan Neil: I can remember them. I was born in 55 so, it’s probably 58 and 59 that I kind of remember them.
Dan Neil: I remember going into one of the houses, however old I was – nosey, looking around. I opened the cellar door and didn’t I fall down to the ground. There was nothing there- just a space. That’s where the cellar stairs would have been. I’m lucky I wasn’t killed; that I didn’t hit one of the beams.
Jeanette: Do you remember anything else about the houses?
Dan Neil: Well, (I saw) those two big houses that are down at the Meadows, the Manager’s house and the other going by.
Jeanette: Oh.
Dan Neil: There are two down there, at the Meadows, that came from Stirling.
Jeanette: I didn’t know that. I knew there was one.
Dan Neil: That one you can see, off Route 4, but there’s one behind that one that is bigger than that one.
Jeanette: Oh, really. So, you go up the Meadows road, then?
Dan Neil: You go up the Meadows Road and the first little street to the left, called Gairlock; you drive in Gairlock Drive. It’s on the left; it’s bigger than that one on Route 4.
Photo taken by Jeanette Strachan
Jeanette: Do you think it was from the mine when it ran in the 50’s.
Dan Neil: Yes
Dan Neil: You’re familiar with the one off of Route 4.
Jeanette: Yes, the blue house now.
Dan Neil: Yes
Dan Neil: You’re familiar with the one off of Route 4.
Jeanette: Yes, the blue house now.
Photo taken by Jeanette Strachan
Dan Neil: Yes, well this one is right behind it.
Dan Neil: I remember when you could see it from Route 4 but the way the trees are now, you have to go to Gairlock to see it now. Like I was saying about that house down in the Meadows, I was told that that house came from Stirling, I can’t say for sure. I’m saying that because I heard it. I’m not saying because I know it.
Jeanette: Oh, I’m sure it must have come from Stirling but there were two times it ran so…
Dan Neil: These would have been the 50’s houses.
Jeanette: But you saw two houses going down the road and you think it was those two?
Dan Neil: I was only a little kid. Those big houses, a little closer, were pretty impressive going by.
Jeanette: There’s a lot of buildings that came from the mine. There’s a barber shop down in Sydney River. I’m not sure if it came the first time the mine ran or the second.
Dan Neil: That’s where I go to get my hair cut, John Rendell’s.
Jeanette: And did you know that it came from the mine?
Dan Neil: He told me that it came from Stirling, yeah.
Jeanette: I wanted to go in and talk to him. Where is that?
Dan Neil: Do you know where Harold ‘s bakery is? Well, it is just on the Sydney side of Harold’s and the Pizza shop.
Jeanette: I didn’t know there was a barber shop there.
Dan Neil: Oh yeah. I’d say it came in the 50s because John has been barbering now for I guess 60 some years now.
Jeanette: He would have had it right from the mine then.
Dan Neil: I think his father bought it from the mine to set him up a young fellow as a barber. Anyway, you will get that story from him.
Jeanette: Yes. Then there’s the Grand Lake Road Fire Dept. - not the new one but the old one. That was supposed to have come from the mine (Editor’s note In the story “Dan Alex MacLeod: I move houses”, Cape Breton Magazine #35 (p16), Dan Alex notes, “I took the Fire station out, in Grand Lake Road there, I took that from the mine here.”
Dan Neil: Could be. Did you ever hear that Murdock Hennessey’s house came from the mine?
Jeanette: No. I never heard that.
Dan Neil: Well, I heard that. I don’t know, it was supposed to have been moved from the mine to somewhere along King’s road and then when they were widening King’s Road, it was moved up to that lot next to Bev’s place (Woodside Dr).
Jeanette: Well, that’s interesting.
Dan Neil: Bucky Sives owned it before Murdock.
Jeanette: So that house got moved twice.
Dan Neil: It was supposed to have been moved from Stirling to King’s Road and when they were widening King’s Road, it was moved up onto that lot, on the corner there.
Jeanette That would be about the size of Dan Norman’s (and Chris) house.
Jeanette: There were a bunch of houses from the 30’s too. The mine was totally demolished after the late 30s or early 40s and then rebuilt so there are some old houses from then. And I think there is an old house down heading toward Sydney from East Bay and it’s a big white house and it had red trim on it and I’m pretty sure my father used to tell me that was the Manager’s house. So that one there definitely isn’t one of the two houses you are talking about.
Dan Neil: You know a lot of the houses were like Angus Alex (MacLeod) had.
Jeanette: Now that was one of the three houses that were on the left-hand side. They were a little different than the other houses.
Dan Neil: Was that one (like the one) that Kenny Dan lived in?
Jeanette: Kenny Dan’s, that was one of the ones over on the right-hand side.
Dan Neil: See there were a lot of houses that style of Kenny Dan’s house. (Editor’s note: David MacLeod notes that his mother and father’s house (Ian and Rhodena MacLeod – Grand River) was the same as Kenny Dan’s house and he said it cost $800.00 and $200 for Dan Alex to move it.)
Dan Neil: I remember when you could see it from Route 4 but the way the trees are now, you have to go to Gairlock to see it now. Like I was saying about that house down in the Meadows, I was told that that house came from Stirling, I can’t say for sure. I’m saying that because I heard it. I’m not saying because I know it.
Jeanette: Oh, I’m sure it must have come from Stirling but there were two times it ran so…
Dan Neil: These would have been the 50’s houses.
Jeanette: But you saw two houses going down the road and you think it was those two?
Dan Neil: I was only a little kid. Those big houses, a little closer, were pretty impressive going by.
Jeanette: There’s a lot of buildings that came from the mine. There’s a barber shop down in Sydney River. I’m not sure if it came the first time the mine ran or the second.
Dan Neil: That’s where I go to get my hair cut, John Rendell’s.
Jeanette: And did you know that it came from the mine?
Dan Neil: He told me that it came from Stirling, yeah.
Jeanette: I wanted to go in and talk to him. Where is that?
Dan Neil: Do you know where Harold ‘s bakery is? Well, it is just on the Sydney side of Harold’s and the Pizza shop.
Jeanette: I didn’t know there was a barber shop there.
Dan Neil: Oh yeah. I’d say it came in the 50s because John has been barbering now for I guess 60 some years now.
Jeanette: He would have had it right from the mine then.
Dan Neil: I think his father bought it from the mine to set him up a young fellow as a barber. Anyway, you will get that story from him.
Jeanette: Yes. Then there’s the Grand Lake Road Fire Dept. - not the new one but the old one. That was supposed to have come from the mine (Editor’s note In the story “Dan Alex MacLeod: I move houses”, Cape Breton Magazine #35 (p16), Dan Alex notes, “I took the Fire station out, in Grand Lake Road there, I took that from the mine here.”
Dan Neil: Could be. Did you ever hear that Murdock Hennessey’s house came from the mine?
Jeanette: No. I never heard that.
Dan Neil: Well, I heard that. I don’t know, it was supposed to have been moved from the mine to somewhere along King’s road and then when they were widening King’s Road, it was moved up to that lot next to Bev’s place (Woodside Dr).
Jeanette: Well, that’s interesting.
Dan Neil: Bucky Sives owned it before Murdock.
Jeanette: So that house got moved twice.
Dan Neil: It was supposed to have been moved from Stirling to King’s Road and when they were widening King’s Road, it was moved up onto that lot, on the corner there.
Jeanette That would be about the size of Dan Norman’s (and Chris) house.
Jeanette: There were a bunch of houses from the 30’s too. The mine was totally demolished after the late 30s or early 40s and then rebuilt so there are some old houses from then. And I think there is an old house down heading toward Sydney from East Bay and it’s a big white house and it had red trim on it and I’m pretty sure my father used to tell me that was the Manager’s house. So that one there definitely isn’t one of the two houses you are talking about.
Dan Neil: You know a lot of the houses were like Angus Alex (MacLeod) had.
Jeanette: Now that was one of the three houses that were on the left-hand side. They were a little different than the other houses.
Dan Neil: Was that one (like the one) that Kenny Dan lived in?
Jeanette: Kenny Dan’s, that was one of the ones over on the right-hand side.
Dan Neil: See there were a lot of houses that style of Kenny Dan’s house. (Editor’s note: David MacLeod notes that his mother and father’s house (Ian and Rhodena MacLeod – Grand River) was the same as Kenny Dan’s house and he said it cost $800.00 and $200 for Dan Alex to move it.)
Ian & Rhodena MacLeod's house as it is today. Notice addition on the right. Photo by J. Strachan
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Ian & Rhodena MacLeod's house being moved (side view).
Photo obtained from Norman Bartholomew.
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Jeanette: And then Chris and Dan Norman (MacLeod) - they had a little smaller house and Lily and Angus’ (MacLeod). There are two houses over in Westmount.
Dan Neil: Do you know how much they sold for?
Jeanette: Angus I think he got his for a thousand dollars. (Editor’s note: This is a mistake the amount was $700.00, reduced from $1,000). It was damaged. There was steam all through the mine buildings there. Those three houses on the left-hand side used steam from the mine but the other houses above on the right- hand side used coal. In Angus Alex’s story, he talks about that. Dan Neil: Yeah. A thousand dollars was a lot of money at that time.
Jeanette: It was. Bessie said they cost $7,000 to build those houses.
Dan Neil: That sounds a little steep to me.
Jeanette: Yeah I suppose - with the cement and all that.
Jeanette: I added a new story just the other day and in it I have some Lidar pictures. Lidar is like a real photograph but all the trees and all that (other vegetation) are removed. It was John MacEwen and his father (Ken) worked at the mine and they lived in one of those houses on the right-hand side. So, you can see thirteen of the foundations of the houses, but I think there were a few more down below on the right- hand side. Somebody told me there were seventeen (on the right) but, maybe they meant seventeen in all. (Editor’s note: There were three-four different styles of houses on the right side like Kenny Dan’s, Dan Norman’s and the Manager’s, the vice president’s)
Dan Neil: Do you know how much they sold for?
Jeanette: Angus I think he got his for a thousand dollars. (Editor’s note: This is a mistake the amount was $700.00, reduced from $1,000). It was damaged. There was steam all through the mine buildings there. Those three houses on the left-hand side used steam from the mine but the other houses above on the right- hand side used coal. In Angus Alex’s story, he talks about that. Dan Neil: Yeah. A thousand dollars was a lot of money at that time.
Jeanette: It was. Bessie said they cost $7,000 to build those houses.
Dan Neil: That sounds a little steep to me.
Jeanette: Yeah I suppose - with the cement and all that.
Jeanette: I added a new story just the other day and in it I have some Lidar pictures. Lidar is like a real photograph but all the trees and all that (other vegetation) are removed. It was John MacEwen and his father (Ken) worked at the mine and they lived in one of those houses on the right-hand side. So, you can see thirteen of the foundations of the houses, but I think there were a few more down below on the right- hand side. Somebody told me there were seventeen (on the right) but, maybe they meant seventeen in all. (Editor’s note: There were three-four different styles of houses on the right side like Kenny Dan’s, Dan Norman’s and the Manager’s, the vice president’s)
Dan Neil: It was like a little village up there. I was up there years ago when I started driving first and the trees weren’t there then. You were able to walk (where the houses were) – it was like streets, you know.
Jeanette: That’s right, they were in like rows.
Dan Neil: There were tulips growing near the foundations.
Jeanette: Oh tulips, I remember seeing rose bushes. The last time I was up I didn’t see any – I tried to stay away from the foundations because they are all falling in now. But ten years ago, I went there, and the foundations were in pretty good shape. Some of them had the square wall but in the front there was another concrete wall in the basement going across and I was trying to figure out what that was. Duncan Murdock Dan (MacLeod), he has one of those houses, he said it was to support the stairway going down to the basement. What I’m trying to do now is to find out where all the houses went. I know where a lot of them went.
Dan Neil: I was down in Stirling this summer. I have a side by side. I went in around the mine there for a little while. Its hard to believe how it has grown in.
Jeanette: Yes, it’s grown in quite a bit. If you go down the mine on the left where those three houses were there were two big bunkhouses and if you go up there there’s a semblance of a road there and as you go up you can see the concrete piers that supported the buildings there.
People who Dan Neil knew who worked at the mine.
Dan Neil: My mother’s uncle worked there. Donald Angus MacDonald, from Sandfield. It was Angus MacQueen, Maggie’s husband, who told me that years ago. And Angus Chisholm from Margaree.
Jeanette: Yes, I have his name.
Dan Neil: He was a very famous violin player. I think he was a carpenter. He went to Boston afterward.
Jeanette: So, there was an Angus Chisholm. He was a superintendent.
Dan Neil: Yeah I was reading it this morning. I’m pretty sure Michael MacPhee from Big Pond worked at the Assay office. You can ask Duncan MacLeod. He’ll confirm if it’s right or wrong. He died a few years ago. He followed that line of work all his life. He was called Michael Dougal and Dougal would be his father’s name. You know they used to do that (refer to you by your father’s name). Michael MacLean. I don’t know if Mike MacLean worked underground or if he was a laborer. He and Michael Dougal (MacPhee) were first cousins.
The Story of Michael MacLean and Donald Duck
Dan Neil: Did you hear the story of the night he went off the road, the Stirling Road. Michael MacLean was heading to work on the midnight shift, and he put his car off the road on the Stirling road, on the eight-mile stretch.
Donald Duck (MacLeod) was coming from work. He was coming up the eight-mile stretch (between Loch Lomond and Stirling) with his Jeep. MacLean was off the road, MacLean flagged Donald Duck down, to see if he could get a tow. So, Donald said he had a rope, so he towed him on the road and MacLean wanted to pay him and Donald says, “no, no, no charge”. He says, “but some time you are around with the bag pipes, there is a certain tune I’d like to hear.” “That’s no problem”, said MacLean, “I have the bagpipes in the trunk of the car.” So, at midnight, pitch dark, on the eight mile stretch, he pulls out the pipes, and he tunes them up and Donald sits on the bumper of the Jeep, and MacLean starts marching back and forth on the road playing the tune and Lawrence MacIntyre and another man from Nova Scotia Power -they had been to Stirling on a call - were heading up the eight mile stretch heading back to St Peter’s and they just sat back, and they enjoyed the tunes too.
Jeanette: Laughter. What are the chances, right, of something like that happening – impromptu.
Dan Neil: Well MacLean was a violin player and a piper.
Jeanette: So, what happened to that family. Are they still around?
Dan Neil: Well MacLean died young; he was only 63. He died about twenty years or so ago. He was never married so he didn’t leave any family. He had two or three sisters. One of his nieces and her husband own the house. The house is in Big Pond. It is still in pretty good shape. And they come down from New England somewhere, every summer though they weren’t down this summer with the cutbacks (Covid).
Lawlor Mine
Jeanette: About the Lawlor Mine, there were two students, who did a project; I believe Joey MacNeil and Donnie (MacNeil). In 1980, their schoolteacher Jack MacNeil, asked them to do a project on the Lawlor Mine. So, they did a project and (it was featured) in that Sgurra Breac newsletter. That big rock out there where you can see the four counties, well that newsletter was named after it (in Gaelic). It was a four-page newsletter.
Dan Neil: Oh yeah. I got it all the time when it was being produced.
Jeanette: There were two articles, one in November and one in December of 2006. Do you know those guys?
Dan Neil: Yeah Donnie MacNeil, he worked with us at the Dept of Transportation. He just retired in April (2020). And he lives in big Pond in the house he grew up in, right across from the Glengarry Rd. He and his father live in the same yard.
Jeanette: He might have some information.
Dan Neil: His grandfather worked there, down in that mine. His father, who is also named Donnie; it was his father. He worked underground in that mine for a short time.
Jeanette: So that mine ran in the thirties when the Stirling Mine ran. In that article, I read there, it said, that production of that coal went (mostly) to Stirling and it was high quality coal.
Dan Neil: Yeah, my father, Angus D MacDonald, hauled coal from here to Stirling. We lived very close to that “Lawlor” mine.
Jeanette: Yes, it is just up around the turn from you, right?
Dan Neil: It would be no more than a mile and a half. My father would go down there in the evening and load the sleigh and then take it home and park it by the barn and then in the morning when he got his chores done, he’d hook the horse up and head to Stirling with the load. Then when he came back and after he got his chores done again, I guess, he’d go down and load up.
Jeanette: Would there be a trailer in the back of the sleigh?
Dan Neil: It would be a sleigh with a box on it. One horse would pull a ton. If you had a team you might be able to take more.
Jeanette: And he, as far as you know, would have one horse?
Dan Neil: Yes, that’s the way I have it pictured anyway. Again, none of this stuff is factual for me, it is just what I heard.
Jeanette: Yeah, that’s all we have to go by, really (unless it’s a first-hand account).
Dan Neil: I met a lady, I knew her, oh back in the 80’s. Annie - Chiasson, was her maiden name. She was married to O’Neil. She taught school down there in Glengarry, in 1935, I think she told me. And the men took her down underground; she seen the workings of the mine. She was just a young girl teaching school. She was interested in it so some of the men took her down in the mine for a tour.
Jeanette: Oh, really!
Dan Neil: And you mentioned Hector, Angus Hamish (MacDonald).
Jeanette: Yeah.
Dan Neil: His brother Irving, well Irving’s wife, Bonnie -this would be her mother.
Jeanette: Oh, really
Dan Neil: Yeah. When I met her, she told me about living down there at MacInnis’ and going down into the mine. She came there as a young girl. She was probably only a teenager.
The Glengarry West School
Jeanette: What school would she be teaching at?
Dan Neil: Glengarry West. The school was right in MacInnis’ house. There was no school building, but Mrs. MacInnis wanted her kids to have an education so she made a deal with the schoolboard or whatever it was at the time, that if she supplied the building, they would supply the teacher. So she rearranged her house. The living room, which they weren't using much anyway, I guess - that was the schoolhouse.
Jeanette: So, Glengarry Rd, it’s dead ended now but did that (once) go around to Gaspereaux Rd, that is up by your place?
Dan Neil: Yeah, this end of it near me, Gaspereaux Rd, is what they called it. It starts over the road from my place and then that hooks on to the Glengarry Rd and it comes out by Donnie MacNeil’s in big Pond.
Jeanette: So, the Glengarry actually goes right around. Is it passable?
Dan Neil: No. the Glengarry Road is passable so far but the Gaspereaux Rd up this end - you could go down maybe a Km in a half ton truck. There are trails for bikes. You can drive down by the mine in a four-wheeler.
Jeanette: Would you be able to tell that the mine was there if you drove down there on a bike?
Dan Neil: Yeah. I can go down right to the mine on my side by side on the MacInnis property. They did some lumbering down there a few years ago. Some trees were knocked down where the old mine site was, but I’m pretty sure I’d be able to find it. You could drive within 100 feet of where the mine was. Again, they have been knocking some trees down, so I don’t know what kind of mess there is there.
Jeanette: So, your father, he didn’t work in that mine; he just hauled the coal to Stirling?
Dan Neil: I never heard that he had worked in the mine. He hauled the coal to Stirling.
Jeanette: Was he the only one that did that?
Dan Neil: Oh no, I think everybody who had a sleigh was doing that.
Jeanette: Oh yeah, there was a lot of traffic going through there in the day.
Dan Neil: Yeah, there might be someone from Stirling, who might come up to get a load and go back and then they’d be home. I don’t know where they were all from who were doing the hauling. My father had the advantage that he was living near the mine. He could load up the night before and get going early in the morning.
Jeanette: Would you have any idea, in a run of a day, how many loads would have gone over to Stirling?
Dan Neil: No, I wouldn’t. I don’t now how may tons they would need to keep the community and the mine going. I’d say the mine with the boilers, and such would be burning a lot of coal.
Dan Neil: Did you ever see the book that Angie Johnny Allan (MacDonald) had?
Jeanette: Yes, my father had it. He (Angie) went over every house in Loch Lomond and wrote stories of the families there.
Dan Neil: Yeah, so anyway this is what he is saying about the Lawlor’s. This would be the next place to the mine. The mine was on the MacInnis’ property but the Lawlor’s lived on the next-door property. They didn’t live on the property the mine was on. “Donald MacDonald”, he says, “was on the next farm. He came from Ben Becula, that is between North and South Uist. His son Frank was an Engineer for the city of Detroit.” These are the people who lived on the land before the Lawlor’s. “The girl’s name was Mary, and she was born in Bangor, Maine. The property was later owned by the Lawlor family, who had two boys Tom and Russel. Tom married a lowland Scottish girl. Russel was an Engineer and ran the coal mine in Glengarry.” So that’s all he says about them.
Jeanette: The boys Joey and Donnie wrote a bit about that family in that newsletter (Sgurra Breac).
Alex Hector/Nelson MacAskill
Dan Neil: You have a picture of Alex Hector Macaskill. He spent a lot of time here with my father. He was a good friend. My father wasn’t well on the last going off of his life; Alex was here doing the barn work and stuff.
Jeanette: Well, his nephew, Neilly Hector, his son Neilson, I interviewed him a few months ago. They lived on the Stirling Rd. There was a road that went up by Flo and Jack MacAskill. He’s got some good information there too. Jackie Murdock Dan (MacLeod) told me a few years ago that the Stirling Mine people made application to the province to incorporate Stirling as a town and they sent a map (which showed) where everybody lived. And I was trying to get access to it, but I wasn’t successful. This MacAskill - his sister did work at the Archives and she said there is a map there of Stirling of all the houses. He said when she can get back to the Archives she will get it. So, I’m waiting for that one. There’s still a lot of little pieces of information I’m still investigating.
The Dynamite house
Jeanette: Another thing is, the dynamite house. When you go down the road to the mine there is a building there (on the left). I believe they did house some dynamite there, maybe in the 30s but in the 50s it was out behind the mill as people described it to me. So, we went out there, Robert and I, and we went on the road and we found this foundation and it was kind of dug into the hill and so I was figuring they must have done that so that if it blew up, it wouldn’t damage all the buildings and stuff in the mine.
Jeanette: That’s right, they were in like rows.
Dan Neil: There were tulips growing near the foundations.
Jeanette: Oh tulips, I remember seeing rose bushes. The last time I was up I didn’t see any – I tried to stay away from the foundations because they are all falling in now. But ten years ago, I went there, and the foundations were in pretty good shape. Some of them had the square wall but in the front there was another concrete wall in the basement going across and I was trying to figure out what that was. Duncan Murdock Dan (MacLeod), he has one of those houses, he said it was to support the stairway going down to the basement. What I’m trying to do now is to find out where all the houses went. I know where a lot of them went.
Dan Neil: I was down in Stirling this summer. I have a side by side. I went in around the mine there for a little while. Its hard to believe how it has grown in.
Jeanette: Yes, it’s grown in quite a bit. If you go down the mine on the left where those three houses were there were two big bunkhouses and if you go up there there’s a semblance of a road there and as you go up you can see the concrete piers that supported the buildings there.
People who Dan Neil knew who worked at the mine.
Dan Neil: My mother’s uncle worked there. Donald Angus MacDonald, from Sandfield. It was Angus MacQueen, Maggie’s husband, who told me that years ago. And Angus Chisholm from Margaree.
Jeanette: Yes, I have his name.
Dan Neil: He was a very famous violin player. I think he was a carpenter. He went to Boston afterward.
Jeanette: So, there was an Angus Chisholm. He was a superintendent.
Dan Neil: Yeah I was reading it this morning. I’m pretty sure Michael MacPhee from Big Pond worked at the Assay office. You can ask Duncan MacLeod. He’ll confirm if it’s right or wrong. He died a few years ago. He followed that line of work all his life. He was called Michael Dougal and Dougal would be his father’s name. You know they used to do that (refer to you by your father’s name). Michael MacLean. I don’t know if Mike MacLean worked underground or if he was a laborer. He and Michael Dougal (MacPhee) were first cousins.
The Story of Michael MacLean and Donald Duck
Dan Neil: Did you hear the story of the night he went off the road, the Stirling Road. Michael MacLean was heading to work on the midnight shift, and he put his car off the road on the Stirling road, on the eight-mile stretch.
Donald Duck (MacLeod) was coming from work. He was coming up the eight-mile stretch (between Loch Lomond and Stirling) with his Jeep. MacLean was off the road, MacLean flagged Donald Duck down, to see if he could get a tow. So, Donald said he had a rope, so he towed him on the road and MacLean wanted to pay him and Donald says, “no, no, no charge”. He says, “but some time you are around with the bag pipes, there is a certain tune I’d like to hear.” “That’s no problem”, said MacLean, “I have the bagpipes in the trunk of the car.” So, at midnight, pitch dark, on the eight mile stretch, he pulls out the pipes, and he tunes them up and Donald sits on the bumper of the Jeep, and MacLean starts marching back and forth on the road playing the tune and Lawrence MacIntyre and another man from Nova Scotia Power -they had been to Stirling on a call - were heading up the eight mile stretch heading back to St Peter’s and they just sat back, and they enjoyed the tunes too.
Jeanette: Laughter. What are the chances, right, of something like that happening – impromptu.
Dan Neil: Well MacLean was a violin player and a piper.
Jeanette: So, what happened to that family. Are they still around?
Dan Neil: Well MacLean died young; he was only 63. He died about twenty years or so ago. He was never married so he didn’t leave any family. He had two or three sisters. One of his nieces and her husband own the house. The house is in Big Pond. It is still in pretty good shape. And they come down from New England somewhere, every summer though they weren’t down this summer with the cutbacks (Covid).
Lawlor Mine
Jeanette: About the Lawlor Mine, there were two students, who did a project; I believe Joey MacNeil and Donnie (MacNeil). In 1980, their schoolteacher Jack MacNeil, asked them to do a project on the Lawlor Mine. So, they did a project and (it was featured) in that Sgurra Breac newsletter. That big rock out there where you can see the four counties, well that newsletter was named after it (in Gaelic). It was a four-page newsletter.
Dan Neil: Oh yeah. I got it all the time when it was being produced.
Jeanette: There were two articles, one in November and one in December of 2006. Do you know those guys?
Dan Neil: Yeah Donnie MacNeil, he worked with us at the Dept of Transportation. He just retired in April (2020). And he lives in big Pond in the house he grew up in, right across from the Glengarry Rd. He and his father live in the same yard.
Jeanette: He might have some information.
Dan Neil: His grandfather worked there, down in that mine. His father, who is also named Donnie; it was his father. He worked underground in that mine for a short time.
Jeanette: So that mine ran in the thirties when the Stirling Mine ran. In that article, I read there, it said, that production of that coal went (mostly) to Stirling and it was high quality coal.
Dan Neil: Yeah, my father, Angus D MacDonald, hauled coal from here to Stirling. We lived very close to that “Lawlor” mine.
Jeanette: Yes, it is just up around the turn from you, right?
Dan Neil: It would be no more than a mile and a half. My father would go down there in the evening and load the sleigh and then take it home and park it by the barn and then in the morning when he got his chores done, he’d hook the horse up and head to Stirling with the load. Then when he came back and after he got his chores done again, I guess, he’d go down and load up.
Jeanette: Would there be a trailer in the back of the sleigh?
Dan Neil: It would be a sleigh with a box on it. One horse would pull a ton. If you had a team you might be able to take more.
Jeanette: And he, as far as you know, would have one horse?
Dan Neil: Yes, that’s the way I have it pictured anyway. Again, none of this stuff is factual for me, it is just what I heard.
Jeanette: Yeah, that’s all we have to go by, really (unless it’s a first-hand account).
Dan Neil: I met a lady, I knew her, oh back in the 80’s. Annie - Chiasson, was her maiden name. She was married to O’Neil. She taught school down there in Glengarry, in 1935, I think she told me. And the men took her down underground; she seen the workings of the mine. She was just a young girl teaching school. She was interested in it so some of the men took her down in the mine for a tour.
Jeanette: Oh, really!
Dan Neil: And you mentioned Hector, Angus Hamish (MacDonald).
Jeanette: Yeah.
Dan Neil: His brother Irving, well Irving’s wife, Bonnie -this would be her mother.
Jeanette: Oh, really
Dan Neil: Yeah. When I met her, she told me about living down there at MacInnis’ and going down into the mine. She came there as a young girl. She was probably only a teenager.
The Glengarry West School
Jeanette: What school would she be teaching at?
Dan Neil: Glengarry West. The school was right in MacInnis’ house. There was no school building, but Mrs. MacInnis wanted her kids to have an education so she made a deal with the schoolboard or whatever it was at the time, that if she supplied the building, they would supply the teacher. So she rearranged her house. The living room, which they weren't using much anyway, I guess - that was the schoolhouse.
Jeanette: So, Glengarry Rd, it’s dead ended now but did that (once) go around to Gaspereaux Rd, that is up by your place?
Dan Neil: Yeah, this end of it near me, Gaspereaux Rd, is what they called it. It starts over the road from my place and then that hooks on to the Glengarry Rd and it comes out by Donnie MacNeil’s in big Pond.
Jeanette: So, the Glengarry actually goes right around. Is it passable?
Dan Neil: No. the Glengarry Road is passable so far but the Gaspereaux Rd up this end - you could go down maybe a Km in a half ton truck. There are trails for bikes. You can drive down by the mine in a four-wheeler.
Jeanette: Would you be able to tell that the mine was there if you drove down there on a bike?
Dan Neil: Yeah. I can go down right to the mine on my side by side on the MacInnis property. They did some lumbering down there a few years ago. Some trees were knocked down where the old mine site was, but I’m pretty sure I’d be able to find it. You could drive within 100 feet of where the mine was. Again, they have been knocking some trees down, so I don’t know what kind of mess there is there.
Jeanette: So, your father, he didn’t work in that mine; he just hauled the coal to Stirling?
Dan Neil: I never heard that he had worked in the mine. He hauled the coal to Stirling.
Jeanette: Was he the only one that did that?
Dan Neil: Oh no, I think everybody who had a sleigh was doing that.
Jeanette: Oh yeah, there was a lot of traffic going through there in the day.
Dan Neil: Yeah, there might be someone from Stirling, who might come up to get a load and go back and then they’d be home. I don’t know where they were all from who were doing the hauling. My father had the advantage that he was living near the mine. He could load up the night before and get going early in the morning.
Jeanette: Would you have any idea, in a run of a day, how many loads would have gone over to Stirling?
Dan Neil: No, I wouldn’t. I don’t now how may tons they would need to keep the community and the mine going. I’d say the mine with the boilers, and such would be burning a lot of coal.
Dan Neil: Did you ever see the book that Angie Johnny Allan (MacDonald) had?
Jeanette: Yes, my father had it. He (Angie) went over every house in Loch Lomond and wrote stories of the families there.
Dan Neil: Yeah, so anyway this is what he is saying about the Lawlor’s. This would be the next place to the mine. The mine was on the MacInnis’ property but the Lawlor’s lived on the next-door property. They didn’t live on the property the mine was on. “Donald MacDonald”, he says, “was on the next farm. He came from Ben Becula, that is between North and South Uist. His son Frank was an Engineer for the city of Detroit.” These are the people who lived on the land before the Lawlor’s. “The girl’s name was Mary, and she was born in Bangor, Maine. The property was later owned by the Lawlor family, who had two boys Tom and Russel. Tom married a lowland Scottish girl. Russel was an Engineer and ran the coal mine in Glengarry.” So that’s all he says about them.
Jeanette: The boys Joey and Donnie wrote a bit about that family in that newsletter (Sgurra Breac).
Alex Hector/Nelson MacAskill
Dan Neil: You have a picture of Alex Hector Macaskill. He spent a lot of time here with my father. He was a good friend. My father wasn’t well on the last going off of his life; Alex was here doing the barn work and stuff.
Jeanette: Well, his nephew, Neilly Hector, his son Neilson, I interviewed him a few months ago. They lived on the Stirling Rd. There was a road that went up by Flo and Jack MacAskill. He’s got some good information there too. Jackie Murdock Dan (MacLeod) told me a few years ago that the Stirling Mine people made application to the province to incorporate Stirling as a town and they sent a map (which showed) where everybody lived. And I was trying to get access to it, but I wasn’t successful. This MacAskill - his sister did work at the Archives and she said there is a map there of Stirling of all the houses. He said when she can get back to the Archives she will get it. So, I’m waiting for that one. There’s still a lot of little pieces of information I’m still investigating.
The Dynamite house
Jeanette: Another thing is, the dynamite house. When you go down the road to the mine there is a building there (on the left). I believe they did house some dynamite there, maybe in the 30s but in the 50s it was out behind the mill as people described it to me. So, we went out there, Robert and I, and we went on the road and we found this foundation and it was kind of dug into the hill and so I was figuring they must have done that so that if it blew up, it wouldn’t damage all the buildings and stuff in the mine.
Dan Neil: That was probably right, yeah.
Jeanette: Just speculating, that’s all we can do right now.
Jeanette: Just speculating, that’s all we can do right now.