Page 7 - The Plaster Quarry at St. Ann's

ISSUE : Issue 15

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1976/12/1

Johnny MacDonald, Baddeck: I was born at North River but my wife was born in the quarry. I found her there. I was only 15 years old when I started out there • I used to drive a horse and cart. I worked from pretty well when they started. I left before they quit and when I came back they only worked vyhat they called the tunnel. They made a drive from under? ground way down the hill. When they got to the face of the plaster they were going to open it up. And they'd be about 100 feet deeper. But they never got to. The company got broke. All the houses and everything were taken away. And a lot of the buildings were burnt. And they sold the rails and every? thing that was any good. There was a Chisholm fellow from up the province took the railroad up • rails and everything. But we stayed out at the quarry after? ward • the Oxford people started up in the lumber woods • but there was very little going on in the quarry. Sarah MacDonald: We were married in the quarry. I remember the first work they did there. They had to uncover it all. There was no plaster there that you could see till they started working there. #??1 '' It was quite a nice place. No electric lights or anything like that. But quite a croivd there. All little houses. We had a house and a little farm, not a very big farm. My father left-after my mother died but we stayed on. (Did you find it lonesome after the quarry stopped?) In? deed I did. Lonesome is right. You couldn't see anything but the sky above you from where we were. It was mountains up every side. The quarry was a little piece away from us • we weren't right there. It was a nice place while the quarry was going. Lots of people. They'd be visiting. Then one day there was no one there • just three families. All the people that was there that came there all left there but those three families that was always there anyhow • they were Mac- Lennans and Morrisons and MacDonalds. Everything closed down. He used to go working away to the lumberwoods. (What made you finally leave?) Aw, well, we left. Everybody left so we left. It's 31 years since we left down there. I was there once or twice to see the place. The last time I was there there was a lot of change. There was hardly anything but woods and trees. I wouldn't like to live there anymore, I guess. But I would like to see it for all that. Sarah and Johnny MacDonald Cliffs in the Quarry Isle Royale Beverages Limiteci Your authorized COCA-COLA bottler 564-8130 562-4439 245 Welton St. Sydney, N. S. At Our New Location Better Health Gentre 364 Charlotte Street, Sydney Offers a. Large Range of Health, Vegetarian, Special Diet & Diabetic Foods and Vitamins C.O.D.Orders Accepted/Bulk Rates OPEN MON-FRI PHONE:562-1237 Health is Happiness yjom CAPE BRETON SHOPPING PLAZA SYDNEY RIVBR • OEBN DAILY 'TIL 10 P. M. BDWraENT STOIES A Diyision of the F.W.Woolworth Co. Limited BUY WITH CONRDENCE SATISFACTION GUARANTEED

Cape Breton's Magazine