Dominion, Nova Scotia
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Dominion is an
unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...
community in
Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...
's
Cape Breton Regional Municipality Cape Breton Regional Municipality (often referred to as simply "CBRM") is the Canadian province of Nova Scotia's second largest municipality and the economic heart of Cape Breton Island. As of 2016 the municipality has a population of 94,285. The ...
. It is located immediately west of the larger centre of
Glace Bay Glace Bay (Scottish Gaelic: ''Glasbaidh'') is a community in the eastern part of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia, Canada. It forms part of the general area referred to as Industrial Cape Breton. Formerly an incorporated ...
. Founded in 1906, Dominion got its name from the local
Dominion Coal Company The Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (also DOSCO) was a Canadian coal mining and steel manufacturing company. Incorporated in 1928 and operational by 1930, DOSCO was predated by the British Empire Steel Corporation (BESCO), which was a merger ...
and owed its birth to the coal mining industry as did many of the local communities.
Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...
was king, and remnants of many old mine workings still run under the town. The local high school, MacDonald High, sank slightly into one of these mine workings and had to be subsequently torn down.


History

In the eighteenth century, Dominion was part of a larger area called ''L’Indienne'' (Anglicized to "
Lingan Lingan (2021 population: 229) is a Canadian suburban community in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Lingan is located on the shore of the Cabot Strait, northeast from Sydney, east of New Waterford and northwest of Glace Bay. Th ...
"). The area was inhabited by fishermen and farmers from Acadia and the Basque Country of France and Spain. During the New England and British occupation of Louisbourg in the late 1740s, ''Baie de L’Indienne'' (Indian Bay) harboured small boats called shallops which carried coal from the mine at Table Head (part of modern-day Glace Bay) to waiting coal vessels to supply the garrison at Louisbourg. In May 1748, 120 French and Indians surprised and took the schooner ''Glover'', sloop ''Ellinwood'', seven shallops that were employed in loading coal vessels, and "seven soldiers that happened to be there upon Some Business of their own & without arms." The following day, the raiding party unsuccessfully advanced on the blockhouse fort (Fort William) under construction at Table Head that was to protect the colliery. After this incident, the government at Louisbourg kept an armed vessel moored constantly in Indian Bay for the protection of the coal vessels until the construction of the blockhouse fort was completed. Besides the capture of the coal vessels and English soldiers at ''L’Indienne'' in 1748, the same year the community at ''L’Indienne'' was destroyed when several of the presumably French inhabitants took the British Oath of Allegiance against the wishes of their neighbours. In the nineteenth century, the community on the south side of Indian Bay became known as "Bridgeport," named after a descendant of one of the owners of Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, the English jewellery firm that formed the General Mining Association (G.M.A.) in 1827. When the Town of Dominion was incorporated in 1906, the area became known officially as Dominion and unofficially as Old Bridgeport; Bridgeport was reduced to a small border section between the towns of Dominion and Glace Bay. In 1830, the General Mining Association opened a colliery at Dominion. It began as a drift mine in the cliff below the present St. Eugene's Parish Cemetery in Dominion and two shafts were sunk at quarter-mile intervals in a southerly direction, the second being what became the Old Bridgeport Mine on Upper Mitchell Avenue in Dominion, which was abandoned in 1842. The original mine was closed in 1849. Henry Mitchell, an experienced miner and mine manager, reopened the GMA shaft on Upper Mitchell Avenue in 1884. When Mitchell leased the mine from the GMA in 1884, "every vestige of what once had been a thriving mining community had disappeared. He had to build a small camp for himself to live in." All the houses had been removed to Lingan and Victoria years before. The mine employed an average of 60 men and boys. Houses were built for the miners and the coal was shipped on a railroad built by Mitchell that connected to the International Coal Company's railroad which carried it to the shipping piers in Sydney. Mitchell sold the operation to the International Coal Company in 1893, which in turn sold it to the Dominion Coal Company. It operated as the Old Bridgeport Mine until it was closed in 1894. The Dominion Coal Company operated Dominion No 1 Colliery from 1893 until it closed in 1927. By 1883, there was daily stage coach service between the Inter-Colonial Railway station at Sydney and the communities of Bridgeport (now Dominion), Little Glace Bay, Cow Bay, Lingan and Louisburg. In 1886, two years after Henry Mitchell reopened the old GMA mine, his son and later first mayor of the Town of Dominion, became the first post master at Bridgeport Mines. Like the community, the post office had a number of names over the years, some of which did not correspond to the name of the community. Bridgeport Mines post office was renamed Old Bridgeport Mines in 1887. When the town was incorporated in 1906, a petition to change the name of the post office to reflect the name of the new town was denied by the Post Office Department, which agreed only to drop the word ‘Mines’ from the name. It was not until 1940 that the post office was finally named ‘Dominion.’Stephenson, 75th Anniversary, 11.


Parks

*Dominion Beach Provincial Park


References


External links

{{NSCapeBreton Communities in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality Former towns in Nova Scotia Mining communities in Nova Scotia General Service Areas in Nova Scotia Populated places disestablished in 1995