Chapter VI: St. Lawrence Town: Its Triumph and Tragedy  (continued)

It has been written that around 1929 Walter E. Seibert of the Corporation Trust Company of New York visited St. John's on income tax business with the Newfoundland government.⁽³⁾ During his stay he met John Taylor's relative, William Taylor, who told him in passing of the St. Lawrence fluorspar property. Seibert allegedly expressed moderate interest, but pursued the matter no further.

According to several sources, John Taylor left for New York later in 1929 to sell his claims. One version holds that "after a long stay and without success and presumably having partaken unwisely or too well of the many delights (of New York)"⁽⁴⁾, he sold his claims for just enough cash to pay his hotel bill and passage back home. Another source relates that while Taylor was in New York his wife disappeared with their joint bank account, obliging Taylor to sell Seibert the claims for $350. The Newfoundland Registry of Deeds gives only the bare facts: on 7 February 1930 in New York, John H. Taylor sold Claims 61A and 62 to Walter E. Seibert for $1 and "other valuable considerations".

Other men also staked claims in St. Lawrence at this time. The claims westwardly adjoining Claim 62 - Claims 69, 70 and 80 - belonged to John S. Morris of Portland, Maine; he thought that they contained the Black Duck vein. Indeed, claim maps drawn at the time of staking show both Claim 70 and Claim 62 skimming alongside the Black Duck vein, with Claim 62 also covering the Church and perhaps the Red Robin vein. However, the government later instigated an accurate survey of the area, found the claims to be staked incorrectly and redrew the entire St. Lawrence claim block in such a manner that the Black Duck vein sat on Crown Land. Walter Seibert discovered the discrepancy first and staked the vein for himself.

The 28-year-old Seibert possessed little money in 1930 and at first considered selling his St. Lawrence claims for cash. In order to make a more attractive package for prospective buyers he secured additional property; by December 1930 he owned more than three dozen fluorspar claims.

Seibert did not see his property until 1931. Early in that year he wrote to the bank manager in Burin asking him to suggest a local resident capable of investigating and reporting upon the claims. The manager responded with the name "Aubrey Farrell". Aubrey Farrell's father had in the early 1900s been a St. Lawrence merchant and an amateur prospector. The manager assumed - wrongly, as it turned out - that Aubrey shared his father's enthusiasm for rocks. In fact, Aubrey helped Seibert only at the insistence of his brother, Howard. Even then, he simply forwarded a map of the district to Seibert and told him to come and see the property for himself.

Seibert arrived in St. Lawrence in the summer of 1931 and stayed for some weeks at the Farrell's house. He inspected his claims in the daytime with an American geologist, Dr. W.S. Smith, and relaxed in the evenings with the Farrells, occasionally playing credibly, albeit by ear, upon their piano. St. Lawrence grew more familiar with Seibert as time passed by. When he left Newfoundland at the summer's end, Aubrey Farrell and six local prospectors consented to work for him in his absence.

Seibert returned to New York intending to sell the claims, but found that Depression-ravaged speculators feared risking money on fluorspar,⁽⁵⁾ especially as the United States had just raised its import tariff on the mineral. On the other hand, several companies offered to buy fluorspar should it be made available. Their interest prompted Seibert to hire a St. John's law firm to incorporate for him a mining company with which he could develop or dispose of the claims as the opportunity arose. About 16 months after the law firm incorporated the company - the St. Lawrence Corporation of Newfoundland Limited - Walter Seibert opened up a trial mine upon the Black Duck vein.

St. Lawrence Corporation

Walter Seibert's decision to open a trial fluorspar mine came at a time when the area's economic plight was desperate. Low fish prices, a tidal wave in 1929 and the Depression had forced most of St. Lawrence onto the government allowance of $1.80 per month. To people of the district, Seibert and his proposal seemed nothing short of providential. Human nature and needs being what they are, the average St. Lawrence family man preferred the idea of mining near home, whatever the job's dangers or discomforts, to the hardships of fishing, an occupation that contained the risks but not the stability of mining. Townsmen were consequently more than willing to give Seibert as much help as he required.

Seibert possessed initiative and courage in gambling his money on the St. Lawrence mining project, but also took full advantage of the town's economic handicap. He made a contract with Farrell whereby he would provide mining equipment if Farrell would provide miners. When, but not before, 2000 tons of fluorspar had been excavated and sold, miners would receive 15 cents per hour in wages. That the men agreed to work for such minimal and conditional renumeration clearly indicated their desire to establish the Corporation, aptly known locally as the 'Co-operation', in their midst.

The mining equipment arrived in St. Lawrence in the first week of March 1933. Farrell and the townsmen unloaded it onto sleds and hauled it across the snow to the Black Duck vein, somewhat puzzled by the machinery's dilapidated condition; Seibert, short of cash, had bought it for about $2500 from a bankrupt contractor.⁽⁶⁾

The men spent the spring of 1933 arranging a makeshift ore mill and in the summer began to excavate the vein. This was a formidable task, considering that the 20 men had never mined before. They removed ore with pickaxes and jackhammers, winched it up in pork barrels, rolled it in wheelbarrows to a stockpile and shovelled it into carts to be horse-hauled to the mill. Slowly the required 2000 tons of fluorspar accumulated.

The fluorspar arrived at its destination, the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation's Sydney steel plant, early in 1934. While Seibert waited for DOSCO metallurgists to approve the material as a flux for the Bell Island iron ore, Aubrey Farrell and the miners waited for their wages. Time dragged on; it appeared that wage payment now depended upon DOSCO's producing positive test results. Farrell rebelled and informed Seibert that he would not accept further conditional contracts. At last, DOSCO's favourable assessment came through, and Seibert commenced full-scale mining at St. Lawrence.

Commercial mining of the Black Duck vein began in the summer of 1934 under the management of Dr. W.S. Smith. The Corporation's limited backing required miners to work the vein as an open pit rather than as a more costly underground operation. This move ultimately caused the Corporation more trouble than it saved.

Within months of opening the Black Duck mine the Corporation encountered a problem that was to affect every fluorspar mine in the area: chronic, incessant flooding. Water entered the exposed excavation as groundwater and precipitation and grew more plentiful as the mine deepened. The mine pumps broke down continuously. The Corporation tried to postpone underground development by proposing to the men that they dig a drainage ditch around the pit. If it succeeded in diverting the water they would be paid; if it failed they would not.⁽⁷⁾ The trench failed, and in 1936 the Corporation shifted operations underground.

The move underground brought forth a new set of problems. Smoke and dust produced by the dry-drill jackhammers accumulated in the narrow shaft and drifts, causing cheesecloth facemasks to clog with debris in minutes. The continuous water seepage formed a shallow pool on the mine floor. Compounding these discomforts was the miners' lack of safety clothes, which forced them to don sou'westers and oilskins as though still tending their nets.