Manuscript
Antigonish Heritage Museum
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| Nom de l'objet : | Manuscript |
|---|---|
| Titre : | Sonora Timber Company |
| Catégorie de l'objet : | Other Documents |
| Matériaux : | Paper Ink |
| Numéro d'accession : | 344 |
| Date de fin de production : | 1990-12-31 |
| Description : | Typescript; 13 pages |
| Commentaires : | A history of "The Sonora Timber Company" by A A MacKenzie. The company was located at Aspen, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia and operated from 1924 to 1931. A seasonal operation at peak production offered employment to 1500 persons in a variety of occupations. ; The Sonora Timber Company By A. A. MacKenzie In Nova Scotias AnnapolisValley during the summer of 1984, an old lady called up her memories of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917: I was in Vladivostok in the Maritime Province of Siberia, with my son and my husband, a naval officer. My husband came home one day and said we would have to leave in a hurry. His crewmen were going to hang him. No one wants to be handed. My son and I want to go with you to New York . . . In the winter of 1924; I came with my second husband to Aspen, Nova Scotia, where the Sonora Timber Company was in the pulp business.[1] The lady had been in the great forced migration of Czarist Russians from the vengeful masses who supported the Bolshevik Revolution. Many of the exiles lived out their days in Shanghai, Constantinople, Harbin (Manchuria), and other far-flung places. Five of them, officers in the Czars navy, escaped the bloody turmoil of the Revolution and civil wars and met in New York. There they obtained possession of a number of Russian Steamships by representing themselves as official representatives of Czar Nicholas government, or rather of the White Russian group that fought the Soviet regime, and handed the ships over to the refugees. In spite of the Soviet governments attempts to win back the vessels, the exiled officers retained possession of them, setting up a steamship line, the Polarus Shipping Company. Endeavouring to find cargoes for their new fleet, the officers, led by T. N. Agapayeff, learned that large reserves of timberland were available for sale or lease in eastern Nova Scotia. The West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, with five paper mills on the eastern seaboard, agreed to provide a market for spruce and fir pulpwood.[2] T. N. Agapayeff, acting for the Polarus Shipping Company, came in 1920 to Sherbrooke, GuysboroughCounty, where he began buying or leasing woodland. Within three years a new company, the Sonora Timber Company, was setting up a pulp operation at Sherbrooke and nearby Sonora. A large steam-powered rossing mill for barking pulpwood was erected, an electric power plant, houses for staff, a large horse barn and a store.[3] G. L. Knapton from Harrington, Maine, was brought in to direct forestry operations. Over the next few years the companys operations were extended through GuysboroughCounty and beyond. Offices were set up at Guysborough town and in Baddeck, CapeBreton. A general store and another rossing mill were set up at or near Guysborough town, another general store at Salmon River between Guysborough town and Antigonish.[4] One chain of camps for woods workers extended from Aspen and Melrose up the St. Marys River; another chain of camps ran between Giants Lake and Guysborough town twenty camps altogether were established. Peeled pulp in four-foot lengths was boomed on the Salmon River, on St. Marys River and the MilfordHavenRiver, and near Baddeck. Wood was loaded, by slings, aboard the Polarus Shipping Companys vessels or chartered Norwegian steamers.[5] Along with the wood cut by its own men, the company the company bought a large amount of pulp from farmers and woodsmen in Guysborough, Halifax and AntigonishCounties and CapeBreton. Not having a provincial charter, the Sonora Shipping Company could not buy or lease Crown land, at the same time, for the purpose of exporting wood from the land. In the beginning it was offered the chance to buy the Scotia Lumber Companys lands, but G. L. Knapton, a forester, considered the price to be excessive. However, a number of woodlots were bought or leased from other private owners.[6] Not enough local woodsmen could be found so the new company imported Finns and French Canadians. Several hundred French Canadians were employed, mostly in camps on the St. Marys River. By all reports they were slovenly, lousy, and inclined to neglect the horses they used. They also figured in the only labor dispute which this writer unearthed in connection with the Sonora Timber Company. Student foresters from the United States were brought in to scale the pulpwood and cruise new lots.[7] T. N. Agapayeff was general manager of the Sonora Timber Companys operations. His assistant and Treasurer was Sergei Riazanoff; Sergei Drouginine was purchasing agent; Truchininov was chief engineer. Another Russian, Statchook, was employed as a gardener and laborer.[8] The company employed a medical doctor to provide necessary treatment for the staff and woods workers. Each worker paid one dollar a month on the check-off system for the doctors services. The doctors life was a busy one, as the workers were inclined to call on him for even slight injuries to get the value of their money. Dr. Clyde Marshall recalls going 150 miles to treat or examine three workers, none of whom was in serious condition. The company provided the doctor with a Model-T Ford car as well as living quarters. Seriously ill patients had to be taken by sleigh or wagon to the nearest hospital St. Marthas in Antigonish when roads were impassable for automobile traffic. The nearest railway station was also in Antigonish most of the companys supplies and workers came through that town although there was some travel by schooner and coastal boat.[9] The Sonora Timber Company had a total investment of more than $3,000,000. Their paymaster, John MacIntyre, believes it to have been the largest pulp operation in the Maritimes (as well it may have been, before the Mersey Paper opened near Liverpool).[10] Anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 employees might be on the payroll at any one time. Much of the work was seasonal, like stevedoring or river driving. The two rossing mills could supply enough pulp to load 25 or 30 steamships each year; 60 to 80 stevedores required to load each vessel at Sonora or in ChedabuctoBay. Special handling was necessary at the latter place. Because of the shallow entrance to GuysboroughHarbour, the steamers could take on only part of their cargo at Guysborough or Milford Haven river mouth. The vessel would move to deep water off Cooks Cove, at the Salmon River mouth, to have her load completed.[11] As employer, taxpayer, and purchaser of supplies, the Sonora Timber Company was an important factor in the GuysboroughCounty economy. Most of their supplies were bought in eastern Nova Scotia or in Halifax. Thompson and Sutherlands hardware firm supplied the axes, swede saws, pulp hooks, and other necessary hardware for woods operations, and residences. Food supplies came from both wholesale houses and local farmers. Bookkeeper, Dave Sears, recalled an occasion when no meat was to be had in a camp where he was quartered. Apparently, no one had shot a moose recently. A supplier at Ogden was contacted on the farmers telephone line. Within an hour he was at the camp, a still-warm carcass quivering in the back of his Model T. The carcass was promptly chopped up and thrown in a big stew pot for the evening meal.[12] The Sonora Timber Company had the reputation of being a good employer. Wages were average for the time and place. Laborers in the mills received 25-30 cents an hour for a ten-hour day, six days a week. Choppers and teamsters drew down $30-$50 a month. On contract for piecework, they could get $2.50 a cord. Farmers and woodlot owners were paid as much as $3.50 a cord at the roadside, stevedores loading the vessels were paid $1.50 to $2.25 daily the higher rate going to men down in the hold.[13] As far as we can determine on available evidence, the Senora Timber Companys operations lasted from 1924 to 1931. In 1929, there were press reports of a possible merger between Sonora Timber Company and the Mersey Paper Company. Nothing came o |
| Longueur : | 28cm |
| Largeur : | 21.5cm |
| Établissement : |
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| Ville de l'établissement : | Antigonish |
| Province de l'établissement : | Nova Scotia |