Chapter V: Isle of Iron, Men of Steel  (continued)

Completion of the shipping pier was followed by the placement of storage bins, crushing apparatus and living accommodations near Jack of Clubs Cove. Amidst the bustle Arthur House and his associates found time to petition the Post Master General that their budding community be changed in name from 'Jack of Clubs Cove' to 'Aguathuna', an Indian word meaning "white rock":

The original Aguathuna pier... (V/9.) (30Kb)		...was replaced in 1947 by another... (V/10.) (24Kb)

...which a year later succumbed to storms. (V/11.) (19Kb)

"The name 'Jack of Clubs Cove' does not appear to be of any great antiquity and is not suggestive of very elevated associations. It is certainly ludicrous when applied to a village whose energies are to be developed to the respectable, prosaic and useful business of quarrying limestone.... It is felt that business correspondence emanating from a place called Jack of Clubs Cove will hardly be treated... with that serious respect and confidence which it is the business of correspondence in mercantile affairs to provoke...."⁽³²⁾

The first shipload of limestone left the Port au Port Peninsula for Sydney aboard the Heathcote in early 1913, and in June the site was christened 'Aguathuna'. The new name may have been less graphic than the original, but it surpassed infinitely the alternative suggestion of the day: 'Limeville'.

Quarrying procedures remained simple during the initial years of the operation. Men dynamited out blocks of limestone, hammered them into manageable chunks and placed them in horse-drawn carts. Horses pulled the carts along tracks to a crusher; from there the crushed rock funnelled through a chute to conveyor belts and on to waiting ships that left Aguathuna for Sydney ten times monthly. Of the many ships that ferried limestone across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, three deserve mention. The Heathcote collided with another vessel in Cabot Strait in 1914 and foundered with a load of limestone. The Storstadt entered the Dominion company service shortly after ramming the Empress of Ireland and causing the deaths of 1014 people. The Lord Strathcona, which doubled as an iron ship for the Wabana iron mines, was one of the vessels sunk off Bell Island during World War II.

The opening of the Aguathuna quarry just preceded the onset of World War I. The first Aguathuna 'casualty' was a town merchant, a Russian-Jewish man named Adam Safir. Already depressed at having gone bankrupt in November 1914, Safir fell morose over the war and ran off to the United States where he reportedly committed suicide. A year later a Slavic deckhand named Dominic was debarred from entering Canada from Newfoundland Regiment, only to perish in battle with most of his company. Another war 'casualty' was the Aguathuna quarry. Aguathuna's drop in productivity and employment paralleled Wabana's as the amount of limestone required by the Dominion company varied in direct proportion to the world demand for steel. The post-war recession, too, afflicted Aguathuna.