Nova Scotia's Lost Communities by Joan Dawson

Author:Joan Dawson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nimbus
Published: 2018-09-12T16:55:26+00:00

Painters at work on the steeple of a church in Goldenville ca. 1900.

Nova Scotia Archives

Early in the 1860s, the focus shifted to the west side of St. Mary’s River. This was a time of previously unheard-of opportunity in Nova Scotia. Gold was discovered by John Gerrish Pulsifer in 1860 at Mooseland, in Halifax County. His find precipitated the first Nova Scotia gold rush, and the search began for deposits in other areas of the province. On August 23, 1861, Nelson Nickerson made his discovery at a spot a few kilometres to the west of Sherbrooke, where a few farming families were established. Nickerson had visited the mining operations at Tangier, where he had learned to recognize quartz, a mineral that often contained small amounts of gold. He was engaged in making hay one day when he noticed that there were quartz rocks scattered around his meadow. On examining them, he found that they contained gold. He kept this discovery to himself for a while, as he and his family exploited the find, but soon his neighbours became suspicious, and one day he was found breaking up rocks and word got out. Fortune hunters were immediately drawn to the area and joined in the search for gold-bearing quartz. A surveyor was brought in to lay out claims, and the Goldenville Gold District was born. It would quickly become the most important gold mining area in Nova Scotia.

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