Hector McQuarrie, my father-in-law, was born and raised in the Halifax-Dartmouth area of Nova Scotia and became involved in mining when he obtained a job at a small gold operation in Moose River, N.S.
When the silver boom occurred in northern Ontario, Hec (as he was known to family and friends) migrated to Cobalt and worked for Foghorn MacDonald, a well-known shaft contractor. As part of the Foghorn crew, he not only helped sink two shafts in the area but contributed to the famous compressed-air plant at Ragged Chute, near Cobalt.
Once the compressor was completed, Hec became a shaft contractor and married Elizabeth Miller, who was from Moose River, N.S. Later, the couple moved to Haileybury, Ont., where they had daughters two years apart.
Lured by the gold boom, Hec moved his family to Timmins in 1914, where he helped sink the shaft at the legendary Hollinger mine. He also sank shafts at the Faymar, Thomas Ogden and De Santis mines, all of which were in the Timmins camp.
Besides two sisters, Hec had eight brothers, four of whom followed him to Timmins and mined in the Porcupine camp. Malcolm McQuarrie became an excellent miner and later transferred to the Vipond mine as captain, whereas another brother, Henry, worked as a prospector for Hollinger until arthritis forced him to stop. He refused to give up, however, and worked in the tool room for the rest of his life, commuting back and forth by dog team (sleds in the winter and a 4-wheel cart in the summer). He even trained his lead dog to stop at red lights.
A third brother, Wilfred, was killed at the Hollinger mine in a backfill sand raise accident, whereas a fourth, Charlie, who injured his hand in the First World War, worked mainly in the region’s mills.
Hec continued to sink shafts, not only in Ontario but in Quebec and Manitoba as well. His family grew by one girl every other year until there were six in all. Sixty-one years ago, I married daughter No. 3.
After a lifetime of shaft-sinking, age started to catch up with Hec. He eventually took a job as a timber foreman at a mine and, for the first time in his life, had a routine.
He once said to me, “I never did have much interest in drifting, crosscutting or stope work, but I do like to dig down.”
— The author, a frequent contributor to this column, resides in Boyertown, Pa.
I am very curious if you found any information on a long lost relative of mine.. actually my great grandmother Beulah Mcquarrie of Ontario Canada. She left my grandmother and ran away when she was quite young and I have spent the last year searching with no results. My grandmother would have been born in the mid to late 1930s so im assuming Beulahs date of birth would have been somewhere between 1900s-1920s. Thank you please email me at ain_g3l@hotmail.com if you come across anything.