Maritime Mysteries (18 page)

A plaque on the north wall of the church is to this day a reminder of the sinking of the
Fairy Queen
and to the memory of those four of its members who went down with the vessel.

Could it be that the women Captain Cross saw in the church doorway were actually ghosts of the women about to lose their lives? And that the tolling of the bell was a foreshadowing of what was yet to happen?

The Spirits of the Deep

C
oal was discovered on Cape Breton Island more than three hundred years ago. By 1870, more than twenty mines were operating and employing thousands of men including children as young as nine years old. At any moment life could be snuffed out in those black dungeons, and perhaps the spirit of more than one wanders the corridors of abandoned mines including 26 Colliery.

Coal mines are an alien and unnatural world, without sun, sky, or ocean. It's a place of flickering light and shadows where one's imagination runs wild. Deep in a coal mine, what causes one to hear doors slamming shut and heavy footsteps running over a cobblestone street? And where do those sorrowful sounding voices come from? Is it all in the mind?

Retired miner Miles Guthro recalls such moments while working in 26. On more than one occasion, he had the feeling something other than human was standing next to him. Neil Johnson, a retired underground manager, told of what he calls a forerunner experience. While making his rounds one day, he heard a very distinctive moan. When he went to investigate, he could not find the source of the sound or anyone nearby. Suddenly, the heavy equipment started up on it own. When Neil climbed up on one of the machines to investigate, he lost his footing, and got caught in the machinery. When he looked down, he saw a shoe lying on the ground, then realized it was his. While recovering in hospital, there was an underground explosion in number 26. The explosion occurred in the exact spot where he had been injured during a shift he would have worked, in an area where he would have been. No one can convince Neil that it was not a forerunner that saved him from certain death. What Neil remembers the most about that incident is the moaning; he still hears it to this day.

Coal miners are a superstitious lot. Catch a woman taking a shortcut over a mine and the miners will drop their shovels, pick-up their lunchpails, and go home for the day.

The Witch of the Miramichi

I
n the early 1800s, Stellarton, Nova Scotia, became a booming coal mining community and men from all over came to town seeking work.

Others came to town to take advantage of the new industry. These were the entrepreneurs: the shop keepers, restaurant owners, apothecaries, and undertakers. Among those business types who arrived to set up shop was a strange and mysterious woman who sold the future. She was a palmist, a fortune-teller, a reader of cards and tea leaves. Her predictions, however, went beyond the usual, “You'll meet a tall, dark and handsome young man who will share with you a life of romantic bliss.”

There are no known photographs of the lady of mystery. According to local history, she came to Nova Scotia from New Brunswick, where she had been known as the Witch of the Miramichi. In Stellarton, she was known only as Mother Coo.

In 1873, her first prediction came true when a group of local coal miners' wives were out for an afternoon of fun and decided to visit the fortune-teller. She looked at the cards, read the tea leaves and became frightened and distraught at what she saw. Mother Coo told the women there would soon be an explosion in the Westville Mine, which was located only a few miles from Stellarton. On May 13th of that year, her prediction came true. Fifty-five miners lost their lives in the underground explosion at the Westville colliery. Mother Coo not only became famous throughout the area, but was also feared by many. Mothers warned their children to give her house a wide berth.

In 1880, Mother Coo looked up from a teacup and again predicted there would be a mine disaster—this time the Stellarton Foord Mine. When her latest prediction became known, a miner by the name of James Lennon gambled on working one more shift: Lennon had planned to book passage to Boston for himself and his family the following day. James Lennon never made it to Boston. He was one of the fifty casualties of the Foord explosion.

On the Sunday morning following the tragedy, a priest mounted the pulpit and prayed for the dead miners, and denounced Mother Coo branding her a witch! Her days in Stellarton were numbered.

One hundred miles west of Stellarton lies the mining town of Spring Hill. On a Saturday morning, February 21st, 1891, dawn clears bright, but cold, as six hundred miners prepared to go below. On the minds of the miners and their loved ones was the final prediction of Mother Coo: just before Easter there will be a terrible explosion in the Springhill Mine. Her prophesy caused great concern in the community, and to relieve the minds of the people of Springhill, mining engineers double-checked every piece of a equipment, all support beams, and methane gas levels. They found nothing that would suggest an explosion was imminent. However, on that faithful morning, six hundred miners went below and 120 of them never came back.

What happened to Mother Coo, the witch of the Miramichi? No one knows. She simply vanished. Some say back to New Brunswick. Perhaps she read her own tea leaves and saw she had no future, and wisely disappeared.